Chapter Twenty Six.Under Another Rule.“You’re to keep to your prison till further orders,” said Bart one day as he entered the place.“Who says so!” cried Humphrey, angrily.“Lufftenant.”“What! Mazzard?”“Yes, sir. His orders.”“Curse Lieutenant Mazzard!” cried Humphrey. “Where is the captain!”No answer.“Is this so-called lieutenant master here!”“Tries to be,” grumbled Bart.“The captain is away, then?”“Orders are, not to answer questions,” said Bart, abruptly; and he left the chamber.Humphrey was better. The whims and caprices of a sick man were giving way to the return of health, and with this he began to chafe angrily.He laughed bitterly and seated himself by the window to gaze out at the dim arcade of forest, and wait till such time as he felt disposed to go out, and then have a good wander about the ruins, and perhaps go down that path where he had been arrested by the appearance of the captain.He had no hope of encountering any of his crew, for, from what he could gather, fully half the survivors, sick of the prisoner’s life, had joined the buccaneer crew, while the rest had been taken to some place farther along the coast—where, he could not gather from Dinny, who had been letting his tongue run and then suddenly stopped short. But all the same he clung to the hope that in the captain’s absence he might discover something which would help him in his efforts to escape and come back, if not as commander, at all events as guide to an expedition that should root out this hornets’-nest.Mid-day arrived, and he was looking forward to the coming of Dinny with his meal, an important matter to a man with nothing to do, and only his bitter thoughts for companions. The Irishman lightened his weary hours too, and every time he came the captive felt some little hope of winning him over to help him to escape.“Ah, Dinny, my lad!” he said as he heard a step, and the hanging curtain was drawn aside, “what is it to-day?”“Fish, eggs, and fruit,” said Bart, gruffly.“Oh! it’s you!” said Humphrey, bitterly. “Dinny away with that cursed schooner!”“Schooner’s as fine a craft as ever sailed,” growled Bart. “Orders to answer no questions.”“You need not answer, my good fellow,” said the prisoner, haughtily. “That scoundrel of a buccaneer is away—I know that, and Dinny is with him, or you would not be doing this.”Bart’s heavy face lightened as he saw the bitterness of the prisoner’s manner when he spoke of the captain; but it grew sombre directly after, as if he resented it; and spreading the meal upon a broad stone, covered with a white cloth—a stone in front of the great idol, and probably once used for human sacrifice—he sullenly left the place.The prisoner sat for a few minutes by the window wondering whether Lady Jenny was thinking about him, and sighed as he told himself that she was pining for him as he pined for her. Then turning to the mid-day meal he began with capital appetite, and not at all after the fashion of a man in love, to discuss some very excellent fish, which was made more enjoyable by a flask of fine wine.“Yes,” he said, half aloud, “I shall go just where I please.”He stopped and listened, for a voice certainly whispered from somewhere close at hand the word “Kelly!”“Yes! what is it? Who called?” said the prisoner, aloud.There was a momentary silence, and then a peculiar whispering voice said—“Don’t be frightened.”“I’m not,” said Humphrey, trying to make out whence the voice came, and only able to surmise that it was from somewhere over the dark corner where he slept.“I want Dennis Kelly,” said the voice.“He’s not here. Away with the schooner,” continued Humphrey.“Oh!”The ejaculation came like a moan of disappointment.“Here, who are you?” cried Humphrey.“No; he cannot be away, sir. But hist! hush, for heaven’s sake! You will be heard,” said the voice. “Speak low.”“Well, I’ll speak in a whisper if you like,” said Humphrey. “But where are you?”“Up above your chamber,” was the reply. “There is a place where the stones are broken away.”“Then I am watched,” thought Humphrey, as the announcement recalled the captain.“Can you see me?” he asked.“I cannot see you where you are now, but I could if you went and lay down upon your couch.”“Then I’ll go there,” said Humphrey, crossing the great chamber to throw himself on the blankets and skins. “Now, then, what do you want with Dinny?”“I knew the captain had gone to sea,” said the voice, evasively; “but I did not know Kelly had been taken too. He cannot be, without letting me know.”“Can you come down and talk to me!”“No; you are too well watched.”“Then how did you get here?”“I crept through the forest and climbed up,” was the reply. “I can see you now.”“But how did you know you could see me there?”“I thought I could. I was watching for someone a little while ago, and saw the captain looking down through here.”“I thought as much,” said Humphrey, half aloud; and he was about to speak again when Bart entered suddenly, looked sharply round, and showed the wisdom of his new visitor by going straight to the window and looking out.“Who were you talking to?” he said, gruffly, as he came back, still looking suspiciously round.“To myself,” said Humphrey, quite truthfully, for his last remark had been so addressed.Bart uttered a grunt, and glanced at the dinner.“Done?” he said.“No. Surely I may spend as long as I like over my meals here.”Bart nodded and went out, the heavy curtain falling behind him; while Humphrey slowly rose and went back to the stone altar, where he filled a silver cup from the flask and drank, and then began humming an air. After this he walked to the curtain and peered cautiously through into the dark corridor, to see the heavy figure of the buccaneer’s henchman go slowly along past the patches of dull green light streaming through the openings which occurred some thirty feet apart.“Gone!” said Humphrey, returning quickly. “Are you there?”“Yes. I could hear everything.”“Listen!” said Humphrey, quickly. “You are Mistress Greenheys?”“Yes.”“And you love Dennis Kelly?”There was silence.“You need not fear me. I know your history,” continued Humphrey. “You are, like myself, a prisoner and in the power of that black-looking lieutenant.”There was a piteous sigh here, and then came with a sob—“I am a miserable slave, sir.”“Yes, yes, I know. Then look here, can we not all escape together?”“Escape, sir! How?”“Through Dinny’s help.”“He would not give it, sir. It would be impossible. I—I—there! I will speak out, sir—I can bear this horrible life no longer! I have asked him to take me away.”“Well, will he not?”“He is afraid, sir.”“And yet he loves you?”“He says so.”“And you believe it, or you would not run risks by coming here?”“Risks!” said the woman, with a sigh. “If Mazzard knew I came here he would kill me!”“The wretch!” muttered Humphrey. Then aloud, “Dinny must help us. Woman, surely you can win him to our side! You will try!”“Try, sir! I will do anything!”“Work upon his feelings, and I will try and do the same.”“He fears the risk of the escape, and also what may happen to him when he gets back to England. He has been a buccaneer, and, he tells me, a soldier. He will be charged with desertion.”“I will answer for his safety,” said Humphrey, hastily. And then running to the curtain he made sure that Bart was not listening.“Be cautious,” he said, as he went back and began to pace up and down, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. “Tell me, could we get a boat?”“I don’t know, sir; I think so. Would it not be better to take to the forest?”“That we must consider. First of all, Dinny must be won over.”“I will try.”“How could I communicate with you?”“You could not, sir. I came to-day to warn Dinny to be cautious, for Mazzard suspects something. He has gone to the men’s place, or I could not be here.”“But you can come sometimes and speak to me. You will be able to know whether anyone is here.”“If I can come, sir,” said the woman; “but it is very difficult. The Commodore is always about; nothing escapes him.”“A scoundrel!”“I don’t think he is such a very bad man,” said the woman.“Indeed! Ah, women always find an excuse for a good-looking scoundrel!”“I don’t think a man who is faithful to the woman he loved can be very bad,” said the voice, softly.“Faithful! why, I suppose he has a dozen wives here?”“He! Oh, no! I don’t know, sir, exactly, but I have seen him go to the old chamber in one of these ruinous places, and he goes there to pray by the side of a coffin.”“What!” cried Humphrey.“Yes, a coffin; and it contains the body of the woman he loved, or else of his sister. No one here knows but Dinny and Bart, and—”“Hist!” whispered Humphrey, catching up a bunch of grapes and beginning to eat them.He had heard the distant step of his guardian, and then there was silence, for Bart seemed to creep up and listen before entering, which he did at last, to find the prisoner muttering to himself and eating the grapes.“Done?”“Yes. You can clear away.”Bart obeyed and turned to go, but as he reached the curtain—“You have plenty of cigars?” he said.“I?”“Ah, well, I’ve got some there,” growled Bart, and he handed the prisoner half a dozen roughly-made rolls of the tobacco-leaf. “Now, you understand,” he continued, as he made to go once more, “you’re to keep here till the skipper comes back.”“Are you afraid I shall escape?” said Humphrey, contemptuously.“Not a bit, captain; but when one man’s life depends on another’s, it makes him careful.”The curtain dropped behind him, and Humphrey stood listening and thinking.Bart’s step could be faintly heard now, and, feeling safe, the prisoner went back to his couch, and gazed up in the direction from whence the voice had come.“Are you still there?” he said, softly.There was no reply; and a repetition of the question was followed by the same silence.“It’s strange,” he said, gazing up in the gloom overhead to where, in the midst of a good deal of rough carving, there seemed to be a small opening, though he could not be sure. “Why should he come and watch me, and take this interest in my well-being? I am not like an ordinary prisoner, and his friendly way, his submission to the rough contempt with which I treated him—it’s strange, very strange! What can it mean?”He threw himself upon the couch, to lie for some time thinking and trying to interpret the meaning; but all was black and confused as the dark mass of carving from which the woman’s voice had seemed to come; and, giving it up at last, he rose, and without any hesitation walked straight out through the opening, and made his way along the corridor to where the sun blazed forth and made him stand and shade his eyes, as he remained considering which way he should go.The prisoner made a bold dash in a fresh direction, going straight toward where he believed the men’s quarters to be; and, as before, the moment he had passed behind the ruins he found himself face to face with a dense wall of verdure, so matted together that, save to a bird or a small animal, farther progress was impossible.Defeated here, he tried another and another place, till his perseverance was rewarded by the finding of one of the dark, maze-like paths formed by cutting away the smaller growth and zig-zagging through the trees.Into this dark pathway he plunged, to find that at the end of five minutes he had lost all idea, through its abrupt turns, of the direction in which he was going; while before he had penetrated much farther the pathway forked, and, unable to decide which would lead him in the required direction, he took the path to the right.It was plain enough that these green tunnels through the forest had been cut by the buccaneers for purposes of defence in case of an enemy carrying their outer works, so that he was in no way surprised to find the path he had taken led right to a huge crumbling stone building, whose mossy walls rose up among the trees sombre and forbidding, and completely barring his way.It was a spot where a few resolute men might keep quite an army at bay, for the walls were of enormous extent, the windows mere stone lattices, and the doorway in front so low that a stooping attitude was necessary for him who would enter. This was consequent upon the falling of stones from above, and the blocking partially of the way.There was a strange, mysterious aspect in the place, overgrown as it was with the redundant growth, which fascinated the explorer, and feeling impelled to go on he gave one glance sound, and was about to enter, when out of the utter stillness he heard a low sound as if someone had been watching him and given vent to a low exhalation of the breath.Humphrey started and looked sharply round, unable to restrain a shudder: but no one was visible, and he was about to go on, feeling ashamed of his nervousness, when the sound was repeated, this time from above his head; and glancing up, he leaped back, for twenty feet above his head in the green gloom there was a curious, impish face gazing down at him; and as he made out more and more of the object, it seemed as if some strange goblin were suspended in mid-air and about to drop down upon his head.“It’s the darkness, I suppose,” exclaimed Humphrey, angrily, as he uttered a loud hiss, whose effect was to make the strange object give itself a swing and reveal the fact that it was hanging by its tail alone from the end of a rope-like vine which depended from the vast ceiling of interlacing leaves.With apparently not the slightest effort the goblin-like creature caught a loop of the same vine, clung there for a moment to gaze back at the intruder into this weird domain, displaying its curiously human countenance, and then sped upwards, when there was a rush as of a wave high above the visible portion of the interlacing boughs, and Humphrey knew that he had startled quite a flock of the little forest imps, who sped rapidly away.“I must be very weak still,” he muttered as he went now right up to the entrance, and after peering cautiously in for a moment or two he entered.It was dim outside in the forest; here, after picking his way cautiously for a stop or two, it was nearly black. The place had probably been fairly lit when it was first constructed, far back in the dim past before the forest invaded the district and hid away these works of man; but now the greatest caution was needed to avoid the fallen blocks of masonry, and the explorer took step after step with the care of one who dreaded some chasm in his way.He stopped and listened, for suddenly from his left there was a faint echoing splash so small and fine that it must have been caused by the drip of a bead of water from the roof, but it had fallen deep down into some dark hollow half filled with water, and a shiver ran through Humphrey’s frame as he thought of the consequences of a slip into such a place, far from help, and doomed to struggle for a few minutes grasping at the dripping stony walls, seeking a means of climbing out, and then falling back into the darkness of the great unknown.He felt as if he must turn back, but his eyes were now growing accustomed to the obscurity, and he made out that just in front there was, faintly marked out, the opening of a doorway leading into a chamber into which some faint light penetrated.Going cautiously forward, he entered, to find to his astonishment that he was in a fair sized room whose stone walls were elaborately carved, as were the dark recesses or niches all around, before each of which sat, cross-legged, a well-carved image which seemed to be richly ornamented in imitation of its old highly-decorated dress. For a moment in the obscurity it seemed as if he had penetrated into the abode of the ancient people who had built the ruined city, and that here they were seated around in solemn conclave to discuss some matter connected with the long low form lying upon the skin spread floor, while to make the scene the more incongruous, these strangely-carved figures were looking down upon the object, which was carefully draped with a large Union Jack.Humphrey paused just inside the threshold and removed his cap, for Sarah Greenheys’ words recurred to him, and it seemed that he must have strayed into one of the many old temples of the place which had been turned by Commodore Junk into a mausoleum for the remains of the woman he was said to have loved, the draped object being without doubt the coffin which held her remains.He stood gazing down at the coloured flag for a time; then with a glance round at the olden idols or effigies of the departed great of the place, and the dark niches at the mouths of which they sat, he went softly out, glanced to his right, and saw an opening which evidently gave, upon the chasm where he had heard the water drip, and stepped out once more into the comparative daylight of the forest.The place might be used as a retreat, he thought, but its present use was plain enough, and he walked quickly back to where the path had branched, and took the other fork.This narrow tunnel through the forest suddenly debouched upon another going across it at right, angles, and after a moment’s hesitation the prisoner turned to the left, and to his great delight found that he had solved one of the topographical problems of the place, for this led towards what was evidently the outer part of the buccaneers’ settlement, and of this he had proof by hearing the smothered sound of voices, which became clear as he proceeded, and at last were plainly to be made out as coming from a ruined building standing upon a terrace whose stones were lifted in all directions by the growth around.This place had been made open by the liberal use of the axe and fire, half-burned trunks and charred roots of trees lying in all directions, the consequence being that Humphrey had to stop short at the mouth of the forest path unless he wanted to be seen. For, to judge from the eager talking, it was evident that a number of men were gathered in the great building at whose doorless opening the back of one of the buccaneers could be seen as he leaned against the stone, listening to someone who, in a hoarse voice which the listener seemed to recognise, was haranguing the rest.Humphrey could not hear all that was said, but a word fell upon his ear from time to time, and as he pieced these words together it seemed as if the speaker were declaiming against tyranny and oppression, and calling upon his hearers to help him to put an end to the state of affairs existing.Then came an excited outburst, as the speaker must have turned his face toward the door, for these words came plainly:“The end of it will be that they’ll escape, and bring a man-of-war down upon us, and all through his fooling.” A murmur arose.“He’s gone mad, I tell you all; and if you like to choose a captain for yourselves, choose one, and I’ll follow him like a man; but it’s time something was done if we want to live.” Another burst of murmurs rose here.“He’s mad, I tell you, or he wouldn’t keep him like that. So what’s it to be, my lads, a new captain or the yard-arm?”
“You’re to keep to your prison till further orders,” said Bart one day as he entered the place.
“Who says so!” cried Humphrey, angrily.
“Lufftenant.”
“What! Mazzard?”
“Yes, sir. His orders.”
“Curse Lieutenant Mazzard!” cried Humphrey. “Where is the captain!”
No answer.
“Is this so-called lieutenant master here!”
“Tries to be,” grumbled Bart.
“The captain is away, then?”
“Orders are, not to answer questions,” said Bart, abruptly; and he left the chamber.
Humphrey was better. The whims and caprices of a sick man were giving way to the return of health, and with this he began to chafe angrily.
He laughed bitterly and seated himself by the window to gaze out at the dim arcade of forest, and wait till such time as he felt disposed to go out, and then have a good wander about the ruins, and perhaps go down that path where he had been arrested by the appearance of the captain.
He had no hope of encountering any of his crew, for, from what he could gather, fully half the survivors, sick of the prisoner’s life, had joined the buccaneer crew, while the rest had been taken to some place farther along the coast—where, he could not gather from Dinny, who had been letting his tongue run and then suddenly stopped short. But all the same he clung to the hope that in the captain’s absence he might discover something which would help him in his efforts to escape and come back, if not as commander, at all events as guide to an expedition that should root out this hornets’-nest.
Mid-day arrived, and he was looking forward to the coming of Dinny with his meal, an important matter to a man with nothing to do, and only his bitter thoughts for companions. The Irishman lightened his weary hours too, and every time he came the captive felt some little hope of winning him over to help him to escape.
“Ah, Dinny, my lad!” he said as he heard a step, and the hanging curtain was drawn aside, “what is it to-day?”
“Fish, eggs, and fruit,” said Bart, gruffly.
“Oh! it’s you!” said Humphrey, bitterly. “Dinny away with that cursed schooner!”
“Schooner’s as fine a craft as ever sailed,” growled Bart. “Orders to answer no questions.”
“You need not answer, my good fellow,” said the prisoner, haughtily. “That scoundrel of a buccaneer is away—I know that, and Dinny is with him, or you would not be doing this.”
Bart’s heavy face lightened as he saw the bitterness of the prisoner’s manner when he spoke of the captain; but it grew sombre directly after, as if he resented it; and spreading the meal upon a broad stone, covered with a white cloth—a stone in front of the great idol, and probably once used for human sacrifice—he sullenly left the place.
The prisoner sat for a few minutes by the window wondering whether Lady Jenny was thinking about him, and sighed as he told himself that she was pining for him as he pined for her. Then turning to the mid-day meal he began with capital appetite, and not at all after the fashion of a man in love, to discuss some very excellent fish, which was made more enjoyable by a flask of fine wine.
“Yes,” he said, half aloud, “I shall go just where I please.”
He stopped and listened, for a voice certainly whispered from somewhere close at hand the word “Kelly!”
“Yes! what is it? Who called?” said the prisoner, aloud.
There was a momentary silence, and then a peculiar whispering voice said—
“Don’t be frightened.”
“I’m not,” said Humphrey, trying to make out whence the voice came, and only able to surmise that it was from somewhere over the dark corner where he slept.
“I want Dennis Kelly,” said the voice.
“He’s not here. Away with the schooner,” continued Humphrey.
“Oh!”
The ejaculation came like a moan of disappointment.
“Here, who are you?” cried Humphrey.
“No; he cannot be away, sir. But hist! hush, for heaven’s sake! You will be heard,” said the voice. “Speak low.”
“Well, I’ll speak in a whisper if you like,” said Humphrey. “But where are you?”
“Up above your chamber,” was the reply. “There is a place where the stones are broken away.”
“Then I am watched,” thought Humphrey, as the announcement recalled the captain.
“Can you see me?” he asked.
“I cannot see you where you are now, but I could if you went and lay down upon your couch.”
“Then I’ll go there,” said Humphrey, crossing the great chamber to throw himself on the blankets and skins. “Now, then, what do you want with Dinny?”
“I knew the captain had gone to sea,” said the voice, evasively; “but I did not know Kelly had been taken too. He cannot be, without letting me know.”
“Can you come down and talk to me!”
“No; you are too well watched.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“I crept through the forest and climbed up,” was the reply. “I can see you now.”
“But how did you know you could see me there?”
“I thought I could. I was watching for someone a little while ago, and saw the captain looking down through here.”
“I thought as much,” said Humphrey, half aloud; and he was about to speak again when Bart entered suddenly, looked sharply round, and showed the wisdom of his new visitor by going straight to the window and looking out.
“Who were you talking to?” he said, gruffly, as he came back, still looking suspiciously round.
“To myself,” said Humphrey, quite truthfully, for his last remark had been so addressed.
Bart uttered a grunt, and glanced at the dinner.
“Done?” he said.
“No. Surely I may spend as long as I like over my meals here.”
Bart nodded and went out, the heavy curtain falling behind him; while Humphrey slowly rose and went back to the stone altar, where he filled a silver cup from the flask and drank, and then began humming an air. After this he walked to the curtain and peered cautiously through into the dark corridor, to see the heavy figure of the buccaneer’s henchman go slowly along past the patches of dull green light streaming through the openings which occurred some thirty feet apart.
“Gone!” said Humphrey, returning quickly. “Are you there?”
“Yes. I could hear everything.”
“Listen!” said Humphrey, quickly. “You are Mistress Greenheys?”
“Yes.”
“And you love Dennis Kelly?”
There was silence.
“You need not fear me. I know your history,” continued Humphrey. “You are, like myself, a prisoner and in the power of that black-looking lieutenant.”
There was a piteous sigh here, and then came with a sob—
“I am a miserable slave, sir.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Then look here, can we not all escape together?”
“Escape, sir! How?”
“Through Dinny’s help.”
“He would not give it, sir. It would be impossible. I—I—there! I will speak out, sir—I can bear this horrible life no longer! I have asked him to take me away.”
“Well, will he not?”
“He is afraid, sir.”
“And yet he loves you?”
“He says so.”
“And you believe it, or you would not run risks by coming here?”
“Risks!” said the woman, with a sigh. “If Mazzard knew I came here he would kill me!”
“The wretch!” muttered Humphrey. Then aloud, “Dinny must help us. Woman, surely you can win him to our side! You will try!”
“Try, sir! I will do anything!”
“Work upon his feelings, and I will try and do the same.”
“He fears the risk of the escape, and also what may happen to him when he gets back to England. He has been a buccaneer, and, he tells me, a soldier. He will be charged with desertion.”
“I will answer for his safety,” said Humphrey, hastily. And then running to the curtain he made sure that Bart was not listening.
“Be cautious,” he said, as he went back and began to pace up and down, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. “Tell me, could we get a boat?”
“I don’t know, sir; I think so. Would it not be better to take to the forest?”
“That we must consider. First of all, Dinny must be won over.”
“I will try.”
“How could I communicate with you?”
“You could not, sir. I came to-day to warn Dinny to be cautious, for Mazzard suspects something. He has gone to the men’s place, or I could not be here.”
“But you can come sometimes and speak to me. You will be able to know whether anyone is here.”
“If I can come, sir,” said the woman; “but it is very difficult. The Commodore is always about; nothing escapes him.”
“A scoundrel!”
“I don’t think he is such a very bad man,” said the woman.
“Indeed! Ah, women always find an excuse for a good-looking scoundrel!”
“I don’t think a man who is faithful to the woman he loved can be very bad,” said the voice, softly.
“Faithful! why, I suppose he has a dozen wives here?”
“He! Oh, no! I don’t know, sir, exactly, but I have seen him go to the old chamber in one of these ruinous places, and he goes there to pray by the side of a coffin.”
“What!” cried Humphrey.
“Yes, a coffin; and it contains the body of the woman he loved, or else of his sister. No one here knows but Dinny and Bart, and—”
“Hist!” whispered Humphrey, catching up a bunch of grapes and beginning to eat them.
He had heard the distant step of his guardian, and then there was silence, for Bart seemed to creep up and listen before entering, which he did at last, to find the prisoner muttering to himself and eating the grapes.
“Done?”
“Yes. You can clear away.”
Bart obeyed and turned to go, but as he reached the curtain—
“You have plenty of cigars?” he said.
“I?”
“Ah, well, I’ve got some there,” growled Bart, and he handed the prisoner half a dozen roughly-made rolls of the tobacco-leaf. “Now, you understand,” he continued, as he made to go once more, “you’re to keep here till the skipper comes back.”
“Are you afraid I shall escape?” said Humphrey, contemptuously.
“Not a bit, captain; but when one man’s life depends on another’s, it makes him careful.”
The curtain dropped behind him, and Humphrey stood listening and thinking.
Bart’s step could be faintly heard now, and, feeling safe, the prisoner went back to his couch, and gazed up in the direction from whence the voice had come.
“Are you still there?” he said, softly.
There was no reply; and a repetition of the question was followed by the same silence.
“It’s strange,” he said, gazing up in the gloom overhead to where, in the midst of a good deal of rough carving, there seemed to be a small opening, though he could not be sure. “Why should he come and watch me, and take this interest in my well-being? I am not like an ordinary prisoner, and his friendly way, his submission to the rough contempt with which I treated him—it’s strange, very strange! What can it mean?”
He threw himself upon the couch, to lie for some time thinking and trying to interpret the meaning; but all was black and confused as the dark mass of carving from which the woman’s voice had seemed to come; and, giving it up at last, he rose, and without any hesitation walked straight out through the opening, and made his way along the corridor to where the sun blazed forth and made him stand and shade his eyes, as he remained considering which way he should go.
The prisoner made a bold dash in a fresh direction, going straight toward where he believed the men’s quarters to be; and, as before, the moment he had passed behind the ruins he found himself face to face with a dense wall of verdure, so matted together that, save to a bird or a small animal, farther progress was impossible.
Defeated here, he tried another and another place, till his perseverance was rewarded by the finding of one of the dark, maze-like paths formed by cutting away the smaller growth and zig-zagging through the trees.
Into this dark pathway he plunged, to find that at the end of five minutes he had lost all idea, through its abrupt turns, of the direction in which he was going; while before he had penetrated much farther the pathway forked, and, unable to decide which would lead him in the required direction, he took the path to the right.
It was plain enough that these green tunnels through the forest had been cut by the buccaneers for purposes of defence in case of an enemy carrying their outer works, so that he was in no way surprised to find the path he had taken led right to a huge crumbling stone building, whose mossy walls rose up among the trees sombre and forbidding, and completely barring his way.
It was a spot where a few resolute men might keep quite an army at bay, for the walls were of enormous extent, the windows mere stone lattices, and the doorway in front so low that a stooping attitude was necessary for him who would enter. This was consequent upon the falling of stones from above, and the blocking partially of the way.
There was a strange, mysterious aspect in the place, overgrown as it was with the redundant growth, which fascinated the explorer, and feeling impelled to go on he gave one glance sound, and was about to enter, when out of the utter stillness he heard a low sound as if someone had been watching him and given vent to a low exhalation of the breath.
Humphrey started and looked sharply round, unable to restrain a shudder: but no one was visible, and he was about to go on, feeling ashamed of his nervousness, when the sound was repeated, this time from above his head; and glancing up, he leaped back, for twenty feet above his head in the green gloom there was a curious, impish face gazing down at him; and as he made out more and more of the object, it seemed as if some strange goblin were suspended in mid-air and about to drop down upon his head.
“It’s the darkness, I suppose,” exclaimed Humphrey, angrily, as he uttered a loud hiss, whose effect was to make the strange object give itself a swing and reveal the fact that it was hanging by its tail alone from the end of a rope-like vine which depended from the vast ceiling of interlacing leaves.
With apparently not the slightest effort the goblin-like creature caught a loop of the same vine, clung there for a moment to gaze back at the intruder into this weird domain, displaying its curiously human countenance, and then sped upwards, when there was a rush as of a wave high above the visible portion of the interlacing boughs, and Humphrey knew that he had startled quite a flock of the little forest imps, who sped rapidly away.
“I must be very weak still,” he muttered as he went now right up to the entrance, and after peering cautiously in for a moment or two he entered.
It was dim outside in the forest; here, after picking his way cautiously for a stop or two, it was nearly black. The place had probably been fairly lit when it was first constructed, far back in the dim past before the forest invaded the district and hid away these works of man; but now the greatest caution was needed to avoid the fallen blocks of masonry, and the explorer took step after step with the care of one who dreaded some chasm in his way.
He stopped and listened, for suddenly from his left there was a faint echoing splash so small and fine that it must have been caused by the drip of a bead of water from the roof, but it had fallen deep down into some dark hollow half filled with water, and a shiver ran through Humphrey’s frame as he thought of the consequences of a slip into such a place, far from help, and doomed to struggle for a few minutes grasping at the dripping stony walls, seeking a means of climbing out, and then falling back into the darkness of the great unknown.
He felt as if he must turn back, but his eyes were now growing accustomed to the obscurity, and he made out that just in front there was, faintly marked out, the opening of a doorway leading into a chamber into which some faint light penetrated.
Going cautiously forward, he entered, to find to his astonishment that he was in a fair sized room whose stone walls were elaborately carved, as were the dark recesses or niches all around, before each of which sat, cross-legged, a well-carved image which seemed to be richly ornamented in imitation of its old highly-decorated dress. For a moment in the obscurity it seemed as if he had penetrated into the abode of the ancient people who had built the ruined city, and that here they were seated around in solemn conclave to discuss some matter connected with the long low form lying upon the skin spread floor, while to make the scene the more incongruous, these strangely-carved figures were looking down upon the object, which was carefully draped with a large Union Jack.
Humphrey paused just inside the threshold and removed his cap, for Sarah Greenheys’ words recurred to him, and it seemed that he must have strayed into one of the many old temples of the place which had been turned by Commodore Junk into a mausoleum for the remains of the woman he was said to have loved, the draped object being without doubt the coffin which held her remains.
He stood gazing down at the coloured flag for a time; then with a glance round at the olden idols or effigies of the departed great of the place, and the dark niches at the mouths of which they sat, he went softly out, glanced to his right, and saw an opening which evidently gave, upon the chasm where he had heard the water drip, and stepped out once more into the comparative daylight of the forest.
The place might be used as a retreat, he thought, but its present use was plain enough, and he walked quickly back to where the path had branched, and took the other fork.
This narrow tunnel through the forest suddenly debouched upon another going across it at right, angles, and after a moment’s hesitation the prisoner turned to the left, and to his great delight found that he had solved one of the topographical problems of the place, for this led towards what was evidently the outer part of the buccaneers’ settlement, and of this he had proof by hearing the smothered sound of voices, which became clear as he proceeded, and at last were plainly to be made out as coming from a ruined building standing upon a terrace whose stones were lifted in all directions by the growth around.
This place had been made open by the liberal use of the axe and fire, half-burned trunks and charred roots of trees lying in all directions, the consequence being that Humphrey had to stop short at the mouth of the forest path unless he wanted to be seen. For, to judge from the eager talking, it was evident that a number of men were gathered in the great building at whose doorless opening the back of one of the buccaneers could be seen as he leaned against the stone, listening to someone who, in a hoarse voice which the listener seemed to recognise, was haranguing the rest.
Humphrey could not hear all that was said, but a word fell upon his ear from time to time, and as he pieced these words together it seemed as if the speaker were declaiming against tyranny and oppression, and calling upon his hearers to help him to put an end to the state of affairs existing.
Then came an excited outburst, as the speaker must have turned his face toward the door, for these words came plainly:
“The end of it will be that they’ll escape, and bring a man-of-war down upon us, and all through his fooling.” A murmur arose.
“He’s gone mad, I tell you all; and if you like to choose a captain for yourselves, choose one, and I’ll follow him like a man; but it’s time something was done if we want to live.” Another burst of murmurs rose here.
“He’s mad, I tell you, or he wouldn’t keep him like that. So what’s it to be, my lads, a new captain or the yard-arm?”
Chapter Twenty Seven.Dinny Consents.The time glided on, and Humphrey always knew when his captor was at sea, for the severity of his imprisonment was then most felt. The lieutenant, Mazzard, was always left in charge of the place, but Bart remained behind by the captain’s orders, and at these times Humphrey was sternly ordered to keep to his prison.Dinny came and went, but, try him how he would, Humphrey could get nothing from him for days and days.The tide turned at last.“Well, sor,” said Dinny one morning, “I’ve been thinking it over a great dale. I don’t like desarting the captain, who has been like a brother to me; but there’s Misthress Greenheys, and love’s a wonderful excuse for a manny things.”“Yes,” said Humphrey, eagerly, “go on.”“Sure, sor, she’s compelled to be married like to a man she hates, and it hurts her falings as much as it does mine, and she wants me to get her away and make a rale marriage of it, such as a respectable woman likes; for ye see, all against her will, she’s obliged to be Misthress Mazzard now, and there hasn’t been any praste.”“I understand,” said Humphrey. “The scoundrel!”“Well, yes, sir, that’s what he is; but by the same token I don’t wonder at it, for if a man stood bechuckst good and avil and Misthress Greenheys was on the avil side, faix, he’d be sure to go toward the avil—at laste, he would if he was an Oirishman.”“Then you will!”“Yis, sor, for the lady’s sake; but I shall have to give up my share of the good things here, and behave very badly to the captain.”“My good fellow, I will provide you for life.”“That’s moighty kind of you, sor, and I thank ye. Yis, I’ll do it, for, ye see, though I don’t want to behave badly to the captain, Black Mazzard’s too much for me; and besides, I kape thinking that if, some day or another, I do mate wid an accident and get dancing on the toight-rope, I sha’n’t have a chance of wedding the widdy Greenheys, and that would be a terrible disappointment to the poor darlin’.”“Yes, yes,” cried Humphrey, impatiently. “Then tell me. You will help me by getting a boat ready, and we can all go down together and put to sea!”“Hark at him!” said Dinny, with a laugh, after going to the great curtain and peering into the corridor. “Ye spake, sor, like a gintleman coming out of his house and calling for a kyar. Lave that all to me.”“I will, Dinny; but what do you propose doing, and when!”“What do I propose doing, sor? Oh! it’s all settled. The darlin’ put an idee in my head, and it’s tuk root like a seed.”“Trust a woman for ingenuity!” cried Humphrey, speaking with the authority of one who knew, though as to women’s ways he was a child.“Ah, an’ she’s a cliver one, sor!”“Well, what is it, Dinny?” cried Humphrey, excitedly.“Be aisy, sor, and lave it to us. The darlin’ has set her moind on getting away from Black Mazzard, and she’s too gintle a crature to go to extremities and tuk his head off some night like the lady did in the tint, or to handle a hammer and a nail and fix his head to the ground. She don’t like to be too hard upon him, sor, so she proposed a plan to me, and it will be all right.”“But, Dinny—”“Be aisy, sor, or ye’ll spoil all. Jist wait quite riddy, like, till some avening I shall come to ye all in a hurry, hold up me little finger to ye, which will mane come, and ye’ll foind it all cut and dhried for ye.”“But, my good fellow—”“Faix, sor, don’t go on like that before I’ve done. I want to say that ye must be at home here riddy. If the skipper asks ye to dinner, don’t go; and if ye hear a big, powerful noise, don’t git running out to see what it is, but go on aisy like, saying to yerself, ‘Dinny’s getting riddy for me, and he may come at anny time.’”“And are you going to keep me in the dark?”“An’ he calls it kaping him in the dark! Ah, well, sor, I won’t do that! I’ll jist tell ye, thin. Ye know the owld chapel place?”“Chapel!”“Well, church, thin, sor. That’s what they say it was. The little wan wid the stone picture of the owld gintleman sitting over the door.”“That square temple?”“Yis, sor. It’s all the same. The haythens who lived out here didn’t know any betther, and the prastes were a bad lot, so they used to worship the owld gintleman, and give him a prisoner ivery now and then cut up aloive.”“Nonsense! How do you know that?”“Faix, it’s written on the stones so; and we found them althers wid places for the blood to run, and knives made out of flint-glass. It’s thrue enough.”“But what about the temple?”“Sure, it is the divil’s temple, sor,” said Dinny, with a twinkle of the eye; “and the skipper said it was just the place for it, so he fills it full of our divil’s dust.”“Money?”“An’ is it money? That’s all safe in another place, wid silver and gowld bars from the mines, as we tuk in ships, and gowld cups, sor. That’s put away safe, for it’s no use here, where there isn’t a whisky-shop to go and spend it. No, sor; divil’s dust, the black gunpowther.”“Oh, the magazine! Well, what of that?”“Sure, sor, the darlin’ put her pretty little lips close to my ear. ‘Och, darlin’, and loight of my ois,’ I says. ‘Sure, it’s so dark in the wood here that ye’ve made a mistake. That’s me ear, darlin’, and not me mouth. Let me show ye’—”“‘No, Dinny,’ she says, ‘I’m like being another man’s wife now, and I can foind me way to yer lips whether it’s dark or light when it’s proper and dacent to do so, and we’ve been to church.’”“Dinny, you’ll drive me mad!” cried Humphrey, impatiently.“An’ is it dhrive ye mad, when I’m thrying to set ye right? Then I’d better not tell ye, sor.”“Yes, yes! For goodness’ sake, man, go on.”“Ah, well, thin, an’ I will! She jist puts her lips to my ear and she says, ‘Dinny, if ye lay a thrain from the powdher-magazine’—think of that now, the darlin’!—‘lay a thrain,’ she says, Dinny, ‘and put a slow-match, same as ye have riddy for firing the big guns, and then be sure,’ she says, ‘and get out of the way’—as if I’d want to shtay, sor, and be sent to hiven in a hurry—‘thin,’ she says, ‘the whole place will be blown up, and iverybody will be running to see what’s the matther and put out the fire, and they’ll be so busy wid that, they’ll forget all about the prishner, and we can go down to the say and get away.’”“Yes,” said Humphrey, thoughtfully. “Is there much powder stored there!”“Yis, sor, a dale. Ivery time a ship’s been tuk all the powdher has been brought ashore and put there. It’s a foin plan, sor, and all made out of the darlin’s own head.”“Yes, Dinny, we ought to get away then.”“Sure, an’ we will, sor. I’ll have a boat wid plenty of wather and sun-dhried mate in her, and some fruit and fishing-lines. We shall do; but the plan isn’t perfect yet.”“Why?”“Sure, an’ there’s no arrangement for getting Black Mazzard to come that time to count over the powdher-barrels.”“What! and blow the scoundrel up!”“Sure, sor, and it would be a kindness to him. He’s the wickedest divil that ever breathed, and he gets worse ivery day, so wouldn’t it be a kindness to try and send him to heaven before he gets too bad to go! But whist! I’ve stopped too long, sor. Ye understand?”“Dinny, get me away from here, and you’re a made man!”“Faix, I dunno, sor. Mebbe there’ll be one lot’ll want to shoot me for a desarter—though I desarted by force—and another lot’ll want to hang me for a pirate. I don’t fale at all safe; but I know I shall be tuk and done for some day if I shtop, and as the darlin’ says she’ll niver make a mistake the right way wid her lips till I’ve taken her from Black Mazzard, why, I’ll do the thrick.”More days passed, and every stroll outside his prison had to be taken by Humphrey with Bart as close to him as his shadow.Dinny kept away again, and the plan to escape might as well have never been uttered.Bart always went well-armed with his prisoner, and seemed unusually suspicious, as if fearing an attempt at escape.Dinny’s little widow came no more, and the hours grew so irksome with the confinement consequent upon the captains absence that Humphrey longed for his return.He debated again and again all he had heard, and came to the conclusion that if he said anything it must be to the captain himself.One morning Bart’s manner showed that something had occurred. His sour face wore a smile, and he was evidently greatly relieved of his responsibility as he said to the prisoner:“There, you can go out.”“Has the captain returned?”Bart delivered himself of a short nod.“Tell him I wish to see him. Bid him come here.”“What! the skipper? You mean, ask him if I may take you to him, and he’ll see you.”“I said, Tell your skipper to come here!” said Humphrey, drawing himself up and speaking as if he were on the quarterdeck. “Tell him I wish to see him at once.”Bart drew a long breath, and wrinkled up his forehead so that it seemed as if he had an enormous weight upon his head. Then, smiling grimly, he slowly left the place.The buccaneer, who looked anxious and dispirited, was listening to some complaint made by his lieutenant, and angry words were passing which made Bart as he heard them hasten his steps, and look sharply from one to the other as he entered.Black Mazzard did what was a work of supererogation as he encountered Bart’s eye—he scowled, his face being villainous enough without.“Well,” he said aloud, “I’ve warned you!” and he strode out of the old temple-chamber which formed the captain’s quarters, his heavy boots thrust down about his ankles sounding dull on the thick rugs spread over the worn stones, and then clattering loudly as he stepped outside.“You two been quarrelling?” said Bart, sharply.“The dog’s insolence is worse than ever!” cried the captain with flashing eyes. “Bart, I don’t want to shed the blood of the man who has been my officer, but—”“Let someone else bleed him,” growled Bart. “Dick would; Dinny would give anything to do it. We’re ’bout tired of him. I should like the job myself.”“Silence!” said the captain, sternly. “No, speak: tell me, what has been going on since I’ve been away?”“Black Mazzard?”The captain nodded.“Half the time—well, no: say three-quarters—he’s been drunk, t’other quarter he’s spent in the south ruins preaching to the men.”“Preaching?”“Yes, with you for text. Just in his old way; but I’ve been too busy with the prisoner.”“Yes, and he?”“It’s him who is master here. Here, get up!” The buccaneer started, threw back his head, and the dark eyes flashed as he exclaimed—“What’s this, sir? Have you been taking a lesson from Mazzard?”“I? No; I’m only giving you your orders!”“What orders?”“Master Captain Humphrey Armstrong’s. You’re to get up and go to him directly. He wants you!”The buccaneer sprang to his feet.“He wants me—he has sent for me?” he cried, eagerly.“Ay! You’re to go to him. He’s master here!”A dull lurid flush came over the captain’s swarthy face as his eyes encountered those of his henchman, and he frowned heavily.“Of course you’ll go!” said Bart, bitterly. “I should give up everything to him now, and let him do as he likes!”“Bart!”“Oh, all right! Say what you like, I don’t mind. Only, if it’s to be so, let him hang me out of my misery, and have done with it.”The buccaneer turned upon him fiercely, and his lips parted to speak; but as he saw the misery and despair in Bart’s face his own softened.“Is this my old friend and help speaking?” he said, softly. “I did not expect it, Bart, from you. Why do you speak to me like this?”“Because you are going wrong. Because I can see how things are going to be, and it’s natural for me to speak. Think I’m blind?”“No, Bart, old friend. I only think you exaggerate and form ideas that are not true. I know what you mean; but you forget that I am Commodore Junk, and so I shall be to the end. Now, tell me,” he continued, calmly; “this captain of the sloop asks to see me?”“Orders you to come to him!”“Well, he is accustomed to order, and illness has made him petulant. I will go.”“You’ll go?”“Yes. Perhaps he has something to say in answer to an offer I made.”“An offer?”“Yes, Bart, to join us, and be one of my lieutenants.”“Join us, and be your lufftenant?” cried Bart.“Yes, and my friend. I like him for the sake of his old generous ways, and I like him for his present manliness.”“You—like him?”“Yes. It is not impossible, is it, that I should like to have a friend?”“Friend?”“Yes!” said the captain, sternly; “another friend! Don’t stare, man, and think of the past. Mary Dell died, and lies yonder in the old temple, covered by the Union Jack, and Abel Dell still lives—Commodore Junk, seeking to take vengeance upon those who cut that young life short.”“Look here!” said Bart, who gasped as he listened to his companion’s wild utterances; “are you going mad?”“No, Bart, I am as sane as you.”“But you said—”“What I chose to say, man. Let me believe all that if I like. Do you suppose I do not want some shield against the stings of my own thoughts? I choose to think all that, and it shall be so. You shall think it too. I am Commodore Junk, and if I wish this man to be my friend, and he consents, it shall be so!”“And suppose some day natur says, ‘I’m stronger than you, and I’ll have my way,’ what then?”“I’ll prove to nature, Bart, that she lies, for she shall not have her way. If at any time I feel myself the weaker, there are my pistols; there is the sea; there is the great tank with its black waters deep down below the temple.”“And you are going there—to him!”“I am going there to him. Can you not trust me, Bart?”The poor fellow made a weary gesture with his hands, and then, as the captain drew himself up, looking supremely handsome in his picturesque garb, and with his face flushed and brightened eyes, Bart followed him towards Humphrey’s prison, walking at a distance, and with something of the manner of a faithful watch-dog who had been beaten heavily, but who had his duties to fulfil, and would do them till he died.
The time glided on, and Humphrey always knew when his captor was at sea, for the severity of his imprisonment was then most felt. The lieutenant, Mazzard, was always left in charge of the place, but Bart remained behind by the captain’s orders, and at these times Humphrey was sternly ordered to keep to his prison.
Dinny came and went, but, try him how he would, Humphrey could get nothing from him for days and days.
The tide turned at last.
“Well, sor,” said Dinny one morning, “I’ve been thinking it over a great dale. I don’t like desarting the captain, who has been like a brother to me; but there’s Misthress Greenheys, and love’s a wonderful excuse for a manny things.”
“Yes,” said Humphrey, eagerly, “go on.”
“Sure, sor, she’s compelled to be married like to a man she hates, and it hurts her falings as much as it does mine, and she wants me to get her away and make a rale marriage of it, such as a respectable woman likes; for ye see, all against her will, she’s obliged to be Misthress Mazzard now, and there hasn’t been any praste.”
“I understand,” said Humphrey. “The scoundrel!”
“Well, yes, sir, that’s what he is; but by the same token I don’t wonder at it, for if a man stood bechuckst good and avil and Misthress Greenheys was on the avil side, faix, he’d be sure to go toward the avil—at laste, he would if he was an Oirishman.”
“Then you will!”
“Yis, sor, for the lady’s sake; but I shall have to give up my share of the good things here, and behave very badly to the captain.”
“My good fellow, I will provide you for life.”
“That’s moighty kind of you, sor, and I thank ye. Yis, I’ll do it, for, ye see, though I don’t want to behave badly to the captain, Black Mazzard’s too much for me; and besides, I kape thinking that if, some day or another, I do mate wid an accident and get dancing on the toight-rope, I sha’n’t have a chance of wedding the widdy Greenheys, and that would be a terrible disappointment to the poor darlin’.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Humphrey, impatiently. “Then tell me. You will help me by getting a boat ready, and we can all go down together and put to sea!”
“Hark at him!” said Dinny, with a laugh, after going to the great curtain and peering into the corridor. “Ye spake, sor, like a gintleman coming out of his house and calling for a kyar. Lave that all to me.”
“I will, Dinny; but what do you propose doing, and when!”
“What do I propose doing, sor? Oh! it’s all settled. The darlin’ put an idee in my head, and it’s tuk root like a seed.”
“Trust a woman for ingenuity!” cried Humphrey, speaking with the authority of one who knew, though as to women’s ways he was a child.
“Ah, an’ she’s a cliver one, sor!”
“Well, what is it, Dinny?” cried Humphrey, excitedly.
“Be aisy, sor, and lave it to us. The darlin’ has set her moind on getting away from Black Mazzard, and she’s too gintle a crature to go to extremities and tuk his head off some night like the lady did in the tint, or to handle a hammer and a nail and fix his head to the ground. She don’t like to be too hard upon him, sor, so she proposed a plan to me, and it will be all right.”
“But, Dinny—”
“Be aisy, sor, or ye’ll spoil all. Jist wait quite riddy, like, till some avening I shall come to ye all in a hurry, hold up me little finger to ye, which will mane come, and ye’ll foind it all cut and dhried for ye.”
“But, my good fellow—”
“Faix, sor, don’t go on like that before I’ve done. I want to say that ye must be at home here riddy. If the skipper asks ye to dinner, don’t go; and if ye hear a big, powerful noise, don’t git running out to see what it is, but go on aisy like, saying to yerself, ‘Dinny’s getting riddy for me, and he may come at anny time.’”
“And are you going to keep me in the dark?”
“An’ he calls it kaping him in the dark! Ah, well, sor, I won’t do that! I’ll jist tell ye, thin. Ye know the owld chapel place?”
“Chapel!”
“Well, church, thin, sor. That’s what they say it was. The little wan wid the stone picture of the owld gintleman sitting over the door.”
“That square temple?”
“Yis, sor. It’s all the same. The haythens who lived out here didn’t know any betther, and the prastes were a bad lot, so they used to worship the owld gintleman, and give him a prisoner ivery now and then cut up aloive.”
“Nonsense! How do you know that?”
“Faix, it’s written on the stones so; and we found them althers wid places for the blood to run, and knives made out of flint-glass. It’s thrue enough.”
“But what about the temple?”
“Sure, it is the divil’s temple, sor,” said Dinny, with a twinkle of the eye; “and the skipper said it was just the place for it, so he fills it full of our divil’s dust.”
“Money?”
“An’ is it money? That’s all safe in another place, wid silver and gowld bars from the mines, as we tuk in ships, and gowld cups, sor. That’s put away safe, for it’s no use here, where there isn’t a whisky-shop to go and spend it. No, sor; divil’s dust, the black gunpowther.”
“Oh, the magazine! Well, what of that?”
“Sure, sor, the darlin’ put her pretty little lips close to my ear. ‘Och, darlin’, and loight of my ois,’ I says. ‘Sure, it’s so dark in the wood here that ye’ve made a mistake. That’s me ear, darlin’, and not me mouth. Let me show ye’—”
“‘No, Dinny,’ she says, ‘I’m like being another man’s wife now, and I can foind me way to yer lips whether it’s dark or light when it’s proper and dacent to do so, and we’ve been to church.’”
“Dinny, you’ll drive me mad!” cried Humphrey, impatiently.
“An’ is it dhrive ye mad, when I’m thrying to set ye right? Then I’d better not tell ye, sor.”
“Yes, yes! For goodness’ sake, man, go on.”
“Ah, well, thin, an’ I will! She jist puts her lips to my ear and she says, ‘Dinny, if ye lay a thrain from the powdher-magazine’—think of that now, the darlin’!—‘lay a thrain,’ she says, Dinny, ‘and put a slow-match, same as ye have riddy for firing the big guns, and then be sure,’ she says, ‘and get out of the way’—as if I’d want to shtay, sor, and be sent to hiven in a hurry—‘thin,’ she says, ‘the whole place will be blown up, and iverybody will be running to see what’s the matther and put out the fire, and they’ll be so busy wid that, they’ll forget all about the prishner, and we can go down to the say and get away.’”
“Yes,” said Humphrey, thoughtfully. “Is there much powder stored there!”
“Yis, sor, a dale. Ivery time a ship’s been tuk all the powdher has been brought ashore and put there. It’s a foin plan, sor, and all made out of the darlin’s own head.”
“Yes, Dinny, we ought to get away then.”
“Sure, an’ we will, sor. I’ll have a boat wid plenty of wather and sun-dhried mate in her, and some fruit and fishing-lines. We shall do; but the plan isn’t perfect yet.”
“Why?”
“Sure, an’ there’s no arrangement for getting Black Mazzard to come that time to count over the powdher-barrels.”
“What! and blow the scoundrel up!”
“Sure, sor, and it would be a kindness to him. He’s the wickedest divil that ever breathed, and he gets worse ivery day, so wouldn’t it be a kindness to try and send him to heaven before he gets too bad to go! But whist! I’ve stopped too long, sor. Ye understand?”
“Dinny, get me away from here, and you’re a made man!”
“Faix, I dunno, sor. Mebbe there’ll be one lot’ll want to shoot me for a desarter—though I desarted by force—and another lot’ll want to hang me for a pirate. I don’t fale at all safe; but I know I shall be tuk and done for some day if I shtop, and as the darlin’ says she’ll niver make a mistake the right way wid her lips till I’ve taken her from Black Mazzard, why, I’ll do the thrick.”
More days passed, and every stroll outside his prison had to be taken by Humphrey with Bart as close to him as his shadow.
Dinny kept away again, and the plan to escape might as well have never been uttered.
Bart always went well-armed with his prisoner, and seemed unusually suspicious, as if fearing an attempt at escape.
Dinny’s little widow came no more, and the hours grew so irksome with the confinement consequent upon the captains absence that Humphrey longed for his return.
He debated again and again all he had heard, and came to the conclusion that if he said anything it must be to the captain himself.
One morning Bart’s manner showed that something had occurred. His sour face wore a smile, and he was evidently greatly relieved of his responsibility as he said to the prisoner:
“There, you can go out.”
“Has the captain returned?”
Bart delivered himself of a short nod.
“Tell him I wish to see him. Bid him come here.”
“What! the skipper? You mean, ask him if I may take you to him, and he’ll see you.”
“I said, Tell your skipper to come here!” said Humphrey, drawing himself up and speaking as if he were on the quarterdeck. “Tell him I wish to see him at once.”
Bart drew a long breath, and wrinkled up his forehead so that it seemed as if he had an enormous weight upon his head. Then, smiling grimly, he slowly left the place.
The buccaneer, who looked anxious and dispirited, was listening to some complaint made by his lieutenant, and angry words were passing which made Bart as he heard them hasten his steps, and look sharply from one to the other as he entered.
Black Mazzard did what was a work of supererogation as he encountered Bart’s eye—he scowled, his face being villainous enough without.
“Well,” he said aloud, “I’ve warned you!” and he strode out of the old temple-chamber which formed the captain’s quarters, his heavy boots thrust down about his ankles sounding dull on the thick rugs spread over the worn stones, and then clattering loudly as he stepped outside.
“You two been quarrelling?” said Bart, sharply.
“The dog’s insolence is worse than ever!” cried the captain with flashing eyes. “Bart, I don’t want to shed the blood of the man who has been my officer, but—”
“Let someone else bleed him,” growled Bart. “Dick would; Dinny would give anything to do it. We’re ’bout tired of him. I should like the job myself.”
“Silence!” said the captain, sternly. “No, speak: tell me, what has been going on since I’ve been away?”
“Black Mazzard?”
The captain nodded.
“Half the time—well, no: say three-quarters—he’s been drunk, t’other quarter he’s spent in the south ruins preaching to the men.”
“Preaching?”
“Yes, with you for text. Just in his old way; but I’ve been too busy with the prisoner.”
“Yes, and he?”
“It’s him who is master here. Here, get up!” The buccaneer started, threw back his head, and the dark eyes flashed as he exclaimed—
“What’s this, sir? Have you been taking a lesson from Mazzard?”
“I? No; I’m only giving you your orders!”
“What orders?”
“Master Captain Humphrey Armstrong’s. You’re to get up and go to him directly. He wants you!”
The buccaneer sprang to his feet.
“He wants me—he has sent for me?” he cried, eagerly.
“Ay! You’re to go to him. He’s master here!”
A dull lurid flush came over the captain’s swarthy face as his eyes encountered those of his henchman, and he frowned heavily.
“Of course you’ll go!” said Bart, bitterly. “I should give up everything to him now, and let him do as he likes!”
“Bart!”
“Oh, all right! Say what you like, I don’t mind. Only, if it’s to be so, let him hang me out of my misery, and have done with it.”
The buccaneer turned upon him fiercely, and his lips parted to speak; but as he saw the misery and despair in Bart’s face his own softened.
“Is this my old friend and help speaking?” he said, softly. “I did not expect it, Bart, from you. Why do you speak to me like this?”
“Because you are going wrong. Because I can see how things are going to be, and it’s natural for me to speak. Think I’m blind?”
“No, Bart, old friend. I only think you exaggerate and form ideas that are not true. I know what you mean; but you forget that I am Commodore Junk, and so I shall be to the end. Now, tell me,” he continued, calmly; “this captain of the sloop asks to see me?”
“Orders you to come to him!”
“Well, he is accustomed to order, and illness has made him petulant. I will go.”
“You’ll go?”
“Yes. Perhaps he has something to say in answer to an offer I made.”
“An offer?”
“Yes, Bart, to join us, and be one of my lieutenants.”
“Join us, and be your lufftenant?” cried Bart.
“Yes, and my friend. I like him for the sake of his old generous ways, and I like him for his present manliness.”
“You—like him?”
“Yes. It is not impossible, is it, that I should like to have a friend?”
“Friend?”
“Yes!” said the captain, sternly; “another friend! Don’t stare, man, and think of the past. Mary Dell died, and lies yonder in the old temple, covered by the Union Jack, and Abel Dell still lives—Commodore Junk, seeking to take vengeance upon those who cut that young life short.”
“Look here!” said Bart, who gasped as he listened to his companion’s wild utterances; “are you going mad?”
“No, Bart, I am as sane as you.”
“But you said—”
“What I chose to say, man. Let me believe all that if I like. Do you suppose I do not want some shield against the stings of my own thoughts? I choose to think all that, and it shall be so. You shall think it too. I am Commodore Junk, and if I wish this man to be my friend, and he consents, it shall be so!”
“And suppose some day natur says, ‘I’m stronger than you, and I’ll have my way,’ what then?”
“I’ll prove to nature, Bart, that she lies, for she shall not have her way. If at any time I feel myself the weaker, there are my pistols; there is the sea; there is the great tank with its black waters deep down below the temple.”
“And you are going there—to him!”
“I am going there to him. Can you not trust me, Bart?”
The poor fellow made a weary gesture with his hands, and then, as the captain drew himself up, looking supremely handsome in his picturesque garb, and with his face flushed and brightened eyes, Bart followed him towards Humphrey’s prison, walking at a distance, and with something of the manner of a faithful watch-dog who had been beaten heavily, but who had his duties to fulfil, and would do them till he died.
Chapter Twenty Eight.Another Duel.“Is that his step? No; its that miserable gaoler’s,” said Humphrey, as he lay back on his soft skin-covered couch with his arms beneath his head in a careless, indolent attitude.Humphrey was beginning to feel the thrill of returning strength in his veins, and it brought with it his old independence of spirit and the memory that he had been trained to rule. His little episode with Bart that morning had roused him a little, and prepared him for his encounter with the buccaneer captain, upon whom he felt he was about to confer a favour.A smile played about his lips as the step drew nearer, the difference between it and that of Bart being more and more marked as he listened, and then quite closed his eyes, while the heavy curtain was drawn aside, and the buccaneer entered the chamber. He took a step or two forward, which placed him in front of the stone idol, and there he stood gazing down at the handsome, manly figure of his prisoner, whose unstudied attitude formed a picture in that weird, picturesque place, which made the captain’s breath come and go a little more quickly, and a faint sensation of vertigo tempt him to turn and hurry away.The sensation was momentary. A frown puckered his brow, and he said quietly—“Asleep?”“No,” said Humphrey, opening his eyes slowly; “no, my good fellow. I was only thinking.”The buccaneer frowned a little more heavily as he listened to his prisoner’s cool, careless words, and felt the contemptuous tone in which he was addressed.“You sent for me,” he said, harshly, and his voice sounded coarse and rough.“Well,” said Humphrey, with insolent contempt, “how many ships have you plundered—how many throats have you cut this voyage?”The buccaneer’s eyes seemed to flash as he took a step forward, and made an angry gesture. But he checked himself on the instant, and, with a faint smile, replied—“Captain Armstrong is disposed to be merry. Why have you sent for me?”“Merry!” said Humphrey, still ignoring the question; “one need be, shut up in this tomb. Well, you are back again?”“Yes; I am back again,” said the buccaneer, smoothing his brow, and declining to be angry with his prisoner for his insulting way as he still lay back on the couch. “It is but the pecking of a prisoned bird,” he said to himself.“And not been caught and hanged yet? I was in hope that I had seen the last of you.”“I have heard tell before of prisoners reviling their captors,” said the buccaneer, quietly.“Revile! Well, is it not your portion!”“For treating you with the consideration due to a gentleman?” said the buccaneer, whose features grew more calm and whose eyes brightened as if from satisfaction at finding the prisoner so cool and daring, and in how little account he was held. “I have given orders that the prisoner should be treated well. Is there anything more I can do?”The harsh grating voice had grown soft, deep, rich, and mellow, while the dark, flashing eyes seemed to have become dreamy as they rested upon the prisoner’s handsome, defiant face.“Yes,” said Humphrey, bitterly; “give me my liberty.”The buccaneer shook his head.“Curse you! No; you profess to serve me—to treat me well—and you keep me here barred up like some wild beast whom you have caged.”“Barred—caged!” said the buccaneer, raising his eyebrows. “You have freedom to wander where you will.”“Bah! freedom!” cried Humphrey, springing up. “Curse you! why don’t I strangle you where you stand?”At that moment there was a rustling among the leaves outside the window, and Humphrey burst into a mocking laugh.“How brave!” he cried. “The buccaneer captain comes to see his unarmed prisoner, and his guards wait outside the doorway, while another party stop by the window, ready to spring in.”The buccaneer’s face turned of a deep dull red—the glow of annoyance, as he strode to the window and exclaimed fiercely—“Why are you here? Go!”“But—”“Go, Bart,” said the buccaneer, more quietly. “Captain Armstrong will not injure me.”There was a heavy rustling sound among the leaves and the buccaneer made as if to go to the great curtain; but he checked himself, turned, and smiling sadly—“Captain Armstrong will believe me when I tell him that there is no one out there. Come, sir, you have sent for me. You have thought well upon all I said. All this has been so much angry petulance, and you are ready to take me by the hand—to become my friend. No, no; hear me. You do not think of what your life here may be.”“That of a pirate—a murderer!” cried Humphrey, scornfully.“No,” said the buccaneer, flushing once more. “I am rich. All that can be a something of the past. This land is mine, and here we can raise up a new nation, for my followers are devoted to me. Come! are we to be friends?”“Friends!” cried Humphrey, scornfully—“a new nation—your people devoted!—why man, I sent for you to warn you!”“You—to warn me?”“Yes. One of your followers is plotting against you. He has been addressing your men; and if you don’t take care, my good sir, you will be elevated over your people in a way more lofty than pleasant to the king of a new nation.”“I understand your sneers, sir,” said the buccaneer, quietly; and there was more sadness than anger in his tone. “They are unworthy of the brave man who has warned me of a coming danger, and they are from your lips, sir, not from the heart of the brave adversary I have vowed to make my friend.”Humphrey winced, for the calm reproachful tone roused him, and he stood there frowning as the buccaneer went on.“As to the plotting against me, I am always prepared for that. A man in my position makes many enemies. Even you have yours.”“Yes—you,” cried Humphrey.“No; I am a friend. There, I thank you for your warning. It is a proof, though you do not know it, that the gap between us grows less. Some day, Captain Armstrong, you will take my hand. We shall be friends.”Humphrey remained silent as the buccaneer left the chamber, and, once more alone, the prisoner asked himself if this was true—that he had bidden farewell to civilisation for ever, and this was to be his home, this strange compound of savage fierceness and gentle friendliness his companion to the end?
“Is that his step? No; its that miserable gaoler’s,” said Humphrey, as he lay back on his soft skin-covered couch with his arms beneath his head in a careless, indolent attitude.
Humphrey was beginning to feel the thrill of returning strength in his veins, and it brought with it his old independence of spirit and the memory that he had been trained to rule. His little episode with Bart that morning had roused him a little, and prepared him for his encounter with the buccaneer captain, upon whom he felt he was about to confer a favour.
A smile played about his lips as the step drew nearer, the difference between it and that of Bart being more and more marked as he listened, and then quite closed his eyes, while the heavy curtain was drawn aside, and the buccaneer entered the chamber. He took a step or two forward, which placed him in front of the stone idol, and there he stood gazing down at the handsome, manly figure of his prisoner, whose unstudied attitude formed a picture in that weird, picturesque place, which made the captain’s breath come and go a little more quickly, and a faint sensation of vertigo tempt him to turn and hurry away.
The sensation was momentary. A frown puckered his brow, and he said quietly—
“Asleep?”
“No,” said Humphrey, opening his eyes slowly; “no, my good fellow. I was only thinking.”
The buccaneer frowned a little more heavily as he listened to his prisoner’s cool, careless words, and felt the contemptuous tone in which he was addressed.
“You sent for me,” he said, harshly, and his voice sounded coarse and rough.
“Well,” said Humphrey, with insolent contempt, “how many ships have you plundered—how many throats have you cut this voyage?”
The buccaneer’s eyes seemed to flash as he took a step forward, and made an angry gesture. But he checked himself on the instant, and, with a faint smile, replied—
“Captain Armstrong is disposed to be merry. Why have you sent for me?”
“Merry!” said Humphrey, still ignoring the question; “one need be, shut up in this tomb. Well, you are back again?”
“Yes; I am back again,” said the buccaneer, smoothing his brow, and declining to be angry with his prisoner for his insulting way as he still lay back on the couch. “It is but the pecking of a prisoned bird,” he said to himself.
“And not been caught and hanged yet? I was in hope that I had seen the last of you.”
“I have heard tell before of prisoners reviling their captors,” said the buccaneer, quietly.
“Revile! Well, is it not your portion!”
“For treating you with the consideration due to a gentleman?” said the buccaneer, whose features grew more calm and whose eyes brightened as if from satisfaction at finding the prisoner so cool and daring, and in how little account he was held. “I have given orders that the prisoner should be treated well. Is there anything more I can do?”
The harsh grating voice had grown soft, deep, rich, and mellow, while the dark, flashing eyes seemed to have become dreamy as they rested upon the prisoner’s handsome, defiant face.
“Yes,” said Humphrey, bitterly; “give me my liberty.”
The buccaneer shook his head.
“Curse you! No; you profess to serve me—to treat me well—and you keep me here barred up like some wild beast whom you have caged.”
“Barred—caged!” said the buccaneer, raising his eyebrows. “You have freedom to wander where you will.”
“Bah! freedom!” cried Humphrey, springing up. “Curse you! why don’t I strangle you where you stand?”
At that moment there was a rustling among the leaves outside the window, and Humphrey burst into a mocking laugh.
“How brave!” he cried. “The buccaneer captain comes to see his unarmed prisoner, and his guards wait outside the doorway, while another party stop by the window, ready to spring in.”
The buccaneer’s face turned of a deep dull red—the glow of annoyance, as he strode to the window and exclaimed fiercely—
“Why are you here? Go!”
“But—”
“Go, Bart,” said the buccaneer, more quietly. “Captain Armstrong will not injure me.”
There was a heavy rustling sound among the leaves and the buccaneer made as if to go to the great curtain; but he checked himself, turned, and smiling sadly—
“Captain Armstrong will believe me when I tell him that there is no one out there. Come, sir, you have sent for me. You have thought well upon all I said. All this has been so much angry petulance, and you are ready to take me by the hand—to become my friend. No, no; hear me. You do not think of what your life here may be.”
“That of a pirate—a murderer!” cried Humphrey, scornfully.
“No,” said the buccaneer, flushing once more. “I am rich. All that can be a something of the past. This land is mine, and here we can raise up a new nation, for my followers are devoted to me. Come! are we to be friends?”
“Friends!” cried Humphrey, scornfully—“a new nation—your people devoted!—why man, I sent for you to warn you!”
“You—to warn me?”
“Yes. One of your followers is plotting against you. He has been addressing your men; and if you don’t take care, my good sir, you will be elevated over your people in a way more lofty than pleasant to the king of a new nation.”
“I understand your sneers, sir,” said the buccaneer, quietly; and there was more sadness than anger in his tone. “They are unworthy of the brave man who has warned me of a coming danger, and they are from your lips, sir, not from the heart of the brave adversary I have vowed to make my friend.”
Humphrey winced, for the calm reproachful tone roused him, and he stood there frowning as the buccaneer went on.
“As to the plotting against me, I am always prepared for that. A man in my position makes many enemies. Even you have yours.”
“Yes—you,” cried Humphrey.
“No; I am a friend. There, I thank you for your warning. It is a proof, though you do not know it, that the gap between us grows less. Some day, Captain Armstrong, you will take my hand. We shall be friends.”
Humphrey remained silent as the buccaneer left the chamber, and, once more alone, the prisoner asked himself if this was true—that he had bidden farewell to civilisation for ever, and this was to be his home, this strange compound of savage fierceness and gentle friendliness his companion to the end?
Chapter Twenty Nine.The Assassins.Humphrey Armstrong walked on blindly farther and farther into the forest, for he was moved more deeply than ever he had been moved before. The presence of this man was hateful to him, and yet he seemed to possess an influence that was inexplicable; and his soft deep tones, which alternated with his harsher utterances, rang in his ears now he was away.“Good heavens!” he cried at last, as he nearly struck against one of the stone images which stood out almost as grey and green as the trees around, “what an end to an officer’s career—the lieutenant of a wretched pirate king! New nation! Bah! what madness!”“Captivity has unmanned me,” he said to himself, as he sat down upon a mossy fragment of stone in the silent forest path, and the utter silence and calm seemed refreshing.He sat thus for some time, with his head resting upon his hand, gazing back along the narrow path, when, to his horror, just coming into view, he saw the figure of the buccaneer approaching, with head bent and arms crossed over his chest, evidently deep in thought.Humphrey started up and backed away round a curve before turning, and walked swiftly along the path, looking eagerly for a track by which he could avoid another encounter, when for the first time he became aware of the fact that he was in the way leading to the old temple which had been formed into a mausoleum, and, unless he should be able to find another path, bound for the ancient structure.He almost ran along the meandering path, feeling annoyed with himself the while, till the gloomy pile loomed before him, and he climbed up the doorway and looked back.All was silent and dim as he stooped and entered, stepping cautiously on, and then, as soon as well sheltered, turning to gaze back and see if the buccaneer came in sight.The place struck chill and damp; there was a mysterious feeling of awe to oppress him as he recalled the chamber behind him, or rather, as he stood, upon his left; and its use, and the strange figures he had seen seated about, all added to the sense of awe and mystery by which he was surrounded; while the feeling of annoyance that he should have shrunk from meeting this man increased.Just then there was the faint drip of water as he had heard it before, followed by the whispering echoes; and, moved by the desire to know how near he was to what must be a deep well-like chasm, he stooped, felt about him, and his hand encountered a good-sized fragment of the stone carving which had mouldered and been thrust by the root of some growing plant from the roof.He did not pause to think, but threw it from him, to hear it strike against stone.It had evidently missed what he intended, and he had turned to gaze again at the path, when he found that it had struck somewhere and rebounded, to fall with a hideous hollow echoing plash far below.Humphrey’s brow grew damp as he listened to the strange whispers of the water; and then he looked once more at the path, wondering whether the horrible noise had been heard, for just then the buccaneer came into sight and walked slowly toward the old temple.But the echoes of that plash were too much shut up in the vast hollow below, and the buccaneer, still with his arms folded and chin resting upon his chest, walked on, evidently to enter the old building.Humphrey hesitated for a moment, half intending to boldly meet his captor; but he shrank from the encounter, and weakly backed away farther into the darkness, till he was in the dim chamber where the coffin lay draped as before, and the strange figures of the old idols sat around.There was no time for further hesitation. He must either boldly meet the buccaneer or hide.He chose the latter course, glancing round for a moment, and then stepping cautiously into one of the recesses behind a sitting figure, where he could stand in complete darkness and wait till the buccaneer had gone.The latter entered the next moment, and Humphrey felt half mad with himself at his spy-like conduct, for as he saw dimly the figure enter, he heard a low piteous moan, and saw him throw himself upon his knees beside the draped coffin, his hands clasped, and his frame bending with emotion, as in a broken voice he prayed aloud.His words were incoherent, and but few of the utterances reached the listening man’s ears, as he bit his lips with anger, and then listened with wonder at what seemed a strange revelation of character.“Oh, give me strength!” he murmured. “I swore revenge—on all—for the wrongs for the death—loved—strength to fight down the weakness—to be—self—for strength—for strength—to live—revenge—death.”The last word of these agonised utterances was still quivering upon the air as if it had been torn from the speaker’s breast, when the dimly-seen doorway was suddenly darkened, and there was a quick movement.Humphrey Armstrong’s position was one which enabled him, faint as was the light, to see everything—the draped coffin, the kneeling figure bent over it prostrate in agony of spirit, and a great crouching form stealing softly behind as if gathering for a spring.Was it Bart? No; and the doorway was again darkened, and he saw that two more men were there.Friends? Attendants? No. There was the dull gleam of steel uplifted by the figure bending over the buccaneer.Assassination without doubt. The moment of peril had come, lightly as it had been treated, and, stirred to the heart by the treachery and horror of the deed intended, Humphrey sprang from his place of concealment, struck the buccaneer’s assailant full in the chest, and they rolled out together on the temple floor.“Quick, lads, help!” shouted the man whom Humphrey had seized, and his companions rushed in, for a general mêlée to ensue at terrible disadvantage, for the assailants were armed with knives, and those they assailed defenceless as to weapons other than those nature had supplied.Humphrey knew this to his cost in the quick struggle which ensued. He had writhed round as he struggled with the would-be murderer, and contrived to get uppermost, when a keen sense of pain, as of a red-hot wire passing through one of his arms, made him loosen his hold for a moment, and the next he was dashed back.He sprang up, though, to seize his assailant, stung by the pain into a fit of savage rage, when, as he clasped an enemy, he found that it was not his first antagonist, but a lesser man, with whom he closed fiercely just as the fellow was striving to get out of the doorway—a purpose he effected, dragging Humphrey with him.The passage was darker than the inner temple, where hoarse panting and the sounds of contention were still going on, oaths, curses, and commands uttered in a savage voice to “Give it him now!”—“Now strike, you fool!”—“Curse him, he’s like an eel!”—and the like came confusedly through the doorway, as, smarting with pain and grinding his teeth with rage, Humphrey struggled on in the passage, savagely determined to retain this one a prisoner, as he fought to get the mastery of the knife.How it all occurred was more than he could afterwards clearly arrange in his own mind; what he could recall was that the pain weakened him, and the man with whom he struggled wrenched his left arm free, snatched the knife he held from his right hand, and would have plunged it into Humphrey’s breast had not the latter struck him a sharp blow upwards in the face so vigorously, that the knife fell tinkling on the ground, and the struggle was resumed upon more equal terms.It was a matter of less than a minute, during which Humphrey in his rage and pain fought less for life than to master his assailant and keep him prisoner. They had been down twice, tripping over the stone-strewn pavement, and once Humphrey had been forced against the wall, but by a sudden spring he had driven his opponent backwards, and they were struggling in the middle of the opening, when a wild shriek rang out from the inner temple—a cry which seemed to curdle the young officer’s blood—and this was followed by a rush of someone escaping.His retreat was only witnessed by one, for the struggle was continued on the floor. The two adversaries, locked in a tight embrace, strove to reach the feet, and, panting and weak, Humphrey had nearly succeeded in so doing, when his foe forced him backwards, and he fell to cling to the rugged stonework.For as he was driven back the flooring seemed to crumble away beneath his feet; there was a terrible jerk, and he found himself hanging by his hands, his enemy clinging to him still, and the weight upon his muscles seeming as if it would tear them apart. In the hurry and excitement Humphrey could hardly comprehend his position for the moment. The next he understood it too well, for the stone which had given way fell with a hideous echoing noise, which came from a terrible distance below.Almost in total darkness, his hands cramped into the interval between two masses of broken stone which formed part of thedébrisof the roof above, hanging over a hideous gulf at the full stretch of his arms, and with his adversary’s hands fixed, talon-like, in garb and dress as he strove to clamber up him to the floor above.At every throe, as the man strove to grip Humphrey with his knees and climb up, some fragment of stone rushed down, to fall far beneath, splashing and echoing with a repetition of sounds that robbed him of such strength as remained to him, and a dreamy sensation came on apace.“It is the end,” thought Humphrey, for his fingers felt as if they were yielding, the chilling sensation of paralysis increased, and in another minute he knew that he must fall, when the grip upon him increased, and the man who clung uttered a hoarse yell for help.“Quick, for God’s sake! Quick!” he shrieked. “I’m letting go!”But at that instant something dark seemed to come between him and the gleaming wet stone away above him in the roof, and then there was quite an avalanche of small stones gliding by.It was the scoundrel’s companion come at the call for help, thought Humphrey; and he clung still in silence, wondering whether it was too late as his strained eye-balls glared upward.“Where are you?” came in a husky voice.It was to save his life; but though Humphrey recognised the voice, he could not speak, for his tongue and throat were dry.“Are you here? Hold on!” cried the voice again; and then there was the sound of someone feeling about, but dislodging stones, which kept rattling down and splashing below.“Where are you!” cried the voice above Humphrey; but still he could not reply. His hands were giving way, and he felt that his whole energy must be devoted to the one effort of clinging to the last ere he was plunged down into that awful gulf.But the man who clung to him heard the hoarsely-whispered question, and broke out into a wild series of appeals for help—for mercy—for pity.“For God’s sake, captain!” he yelled, “save me—save me! It was Black Mazzard! He made me come! Do you hear! Help! I can’t hold no longer! I’m falling! Help! Curse you—help!”As these cries thrilled him through and through, Humphrey was conscious in the darkness that the hands he heard rustling above him and dislodging stones, every fall of which brought forth a shriek from the wretch below, suddenly touched his, and then, as if spasmodically, leaped to his wrists, round which they fastened with a grip like steel.To Humphrey Armstrong it was all now like one hideous nightmare, during which he suffered, but could do nothing to free himself. The wretch’s shrieks were growing fainter, and he clung in an inert way now, while someone seemed to be muttering above—“I can do nothing more—I can do nothing more!” but the grip about Humphrey’s wrists tightened, and two arms rested upon his hands and seemed to press them closer to the stones to which they clung.“Captain—captain! Are you there?”“Yes,” came from close to Humphrey’s face.“Forgive me, skipper, and help me up! I’ll be faithful to you! I’ll kill Black Mazzard!”“I can do nothing,” said the buccaneer, hoarsely. “You are beyond my reach.”“Then go and fetch the lads and a rope. Don’t let me fall into this cursed, watery hell!”“If I quit my hold here, man, you will both go down; unless help comes, nothing can be done.”“Then, call help! Call help now, captain, and I’ll be your slave! Curse him for leaving me here! Where’s Joe Thorpe?”“He was killed by Mazzard with a blow meant for me,” said the buccaneer, slowly.“Curse him! Curse him!” shrieked the man. “Oh, captain, save me, and I’ll kill him for you! He wants to be skipper; and I’ll kill him for you if you’ll only—Ah!”He uttered a despairing shriek, for as he spoke a sharp tearing sound was heard; the cloth he clung to gave way, and before he could get a fresh hold he was hanging suspended by the half-torn-off garb. He swung to and fro as he uttered one cry, and then there was an awful silence, followed by a plunge far below.The water seemed to hiss and whisper and echo in all directions, and the silence, for what seemed quite a long space, was awful. It was, however, but a few instants, and then there was a terrific splashing as if a number of horrible creatures had rushed to prey upon the fallen man, whose shrieks for help began once more.Appeals, curses, yells, piteous wails, followed each other in rapid succession as the water was beaten heavily. Then the cries were smothered, there was a gurgling sound, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed as it seemed to play against the stony walls of the place.A few moments and the cries recommenced, and between every cry there was the hoarse panting of a swimmer fighting hard for his life as he struck out.The buccaneer’s eyes stared wildly down into the great cenote, or water-tank, whose vast proportions were hidden in the gloom. He could see nothing; but his imagination supplied the vacancy, and pictured before him the head and shoulders of his treacherous follower as he swam along the sides of the great gulf, striving to find a place to climb up; and this he did, for the hoarse panting and the cries ceased, and from the dripping and splashing it was evident that he had found some inequality in the wall, by means of which he climbed, with the water streaming from him.The task was laborious, but he drew himself up and up, climbing slowly, and then he suddenly ceased, uttered a terrible cry, and once more there was a splash, the lapping and whispering of the water, and silence.He was at the surface again, swimming hard in the darkness and striving once more to reach the place where he had climbed; but in the darkness he swam in quite a different direction, and his hoarse panting rose again, quick and agitated now, the strokes were taken more rapidly, and like a rat drowning in a tub of water, the miserable wretch toiled on, swimming more and more rapidly and clutching at the wall.Once an inequality gave him a few moments’ rest, and he clung desperately, uttering the most harrowing cries, but only to fall back with a heavy splash. Then he was up once more fighting for life, and the vast tank echoed with his gurgling appeals for help.Again they were silenced, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed.There was a splash, a hoarse gurgle, a beating of the water as a dog beats it before it sinks.Again silence and the whispering and lapping against the sides more faint; then a gurgling sound, the water beat once or twice, a fainter echo or two, and then what sounded like a sigh of relief, and a silence that was indeed the silence of death.Suddenly the silence in that darkness was broken, for a hoarse voice said—“Climb up!”“Climb!” exclaimed Humphrey, who seemed to have recovered his voice, while his frozen energies appeared to expand.“Yes. Climb. I can hold you thus, but no more. Try and obtain a foothold.”Humphrey obeyed as one obeys who feels a stronger will acting upon him.“Can you keep my hands fast?” he said. “They are numbed.”“Yes. You shall not slip now. Climb!”Humphrey obeyed, and placed his feet upon a projection; but it gave way, and a great stone forced from the wall by his weight fell down with a splash which roused the echoes once more.Humphrey felt half-paralysed again; but the voice above was once more raised.“Now,” it said, “there must be foothold in that spot where the stone fell. Try.”The young officer obeyed, and rousing himself for a supreme effort as his last before complete inaction set in, he strove hard. The hands seemed like steel bands about his wrists, and his struggle sent the blood coursing once more through his nerveless arms. Then, with a perfect avalanche of stones falling from the crumbling side, he strove and strained, and, how he knew not, found foothold, drew himself up, and half crawling, half dragged by the buccaneer as he backed up the slope, reached the level part of the passage between the entrance and the doorway of the inner temple, where he subsided on the stones, panting, exhausted, and with an icy feeling running through his nerves.“Commodore Junk,” he whispered hoarsely as he lay in the semi-darkness, “you have saved my life.”“As you saved mine.”Those two lay there in the gloomy passage listening to the solemn whisperings and lappings of the water, which seemed to be continued for an almost interminable time before they died out, and once more all was silent. But the expectancy remained. It seemed to both that at any moment the miserable would-be assassin might rise to the surface and shriek for help, or that perhaps he was still above water, clinging to the side of the cenote, paralysed with fear, and that as soon as he recovered himself he would make the hideous gulf echo with his appeals.By degrees, though, as the heavy laboured panting of their breasts ceased, and their hearts ceased beating so tumultuously, a more matter-of-fact way of looking at their position came over them.“Try if you can walk now,” said the buccaneer in a low voice. “You will be better in your own place.”“Yes—soon,” replied Humphrey, abruptly; and once more there was silence, a silence broken at last by the buccaneer.“Captain Armstrong,” he said softly, at last, “surely we can now be friends!”“Friends? No! Why can we?” cried Humphrey, angrily.“Because I claim your life, the life that I saved, as mine—because I owe you mine!”“No, no! I tell you it is impossible! Enemies, sir, enemies to the bitter end. You forget why I came out here!”“No,” said the buccaneer, sadly. “You came to take my life—to destroy my people—but Fate said otherwise, and you became my prisoner—your life forfeited to me!”“A life you dare not take!” cried Humphrey, sternly. “I am one of the king’s officers—your king’s men.”“I have no king!”“Nonsense, man! You are a subject of His Majesty King George.”“No!” cried the buccaneer. “When that monarch ceased to give his people the protection they asked, and cruelly and unjustly banished them across the seas for no greater crime than defending a sister’s honour from a villain, that king deserved no more obedience from those he wronged.”“The king—did this?” said Humphrey, wonderingly, as he gazed full in the speaker’s face, struggling the while to grasp the clues of something misty in his mind—a something which he felt he ought to know, and which escaped him all the while.“The king! Well, no; but his people whom he entrusts with the care of his laws.”“Stop!” cried Humphrey, raising himself upon one arm and gazing eagerly in the buccaneer’s face; “a sister’s honour—defended—punished—sent away for that! No; it is impossible! Yes—ah! I know you now! Abel Dell!”The buccaneer shrank back, gazing at him wildly.“That is what always seemed struggling in my brain,” cried Humphrey, excitedly. “Of course, I know you now. And you were sent over here—a convict, and escaped.”The buccaneer hesitated for a few moments, with the deep colour going and coming in his face.“Yes,” he said, at last. “Abel Dell escaped from the dreary plantation where he laboured.”“And his sister!”“You remember her story!”“Remember! Yes,” cried Humphrey. “She disappeared from near Dartmouth years ago.”“Yes.”“What became of her—poor girl?” said Humphrey, earnestly; and the buccaneer’s cheeks coloured as the words of pity fell.“She joined her brother out here.”“But he was a convict.”“She helped him to escape.”“I see it all,” cried Humphrey, eagerly; “and he became the pirate—and you became the pirate—the buccaneer, Commodore Junk.”“Yes.”“Good heavens!” ejaculated Humphrey. “And the sister—your sister, man the handsome, dark girl whom my cousin—Oh, hang cousin James! What a scoundrel he could be!”It was the sturdy, outspoken exclamation of an honest English gentleman, and as the buccaneer heard it, Humphrey felt his hand seized in a firm grip, to be held for a few moments and then dropped.“But he’s dead,” continued Humphrey. “Let him rest. But tell me—the sister—Oh!”A long look of apology and pity followed the ejaculation, as Humphrey recalled the scene in the temple, where the long coffin lay draped with the Union Jack—the anguish of the figure on its knees, and the passionate words of adjuration and prayer. It was as if a veil which hid his companion’s character from him had been suddenly torn aside, and a look of sympathy beamed from his eyes as he stretched out his hand in a frank, manly fashion.“I beg your pardon,” he cried, softly. “I did not know all this. I am sorry I have been so abrupt in what I said.”“I have nothing to forgive,” said the buccaneer, warmly, and his swarthy cheeks glowed as Humphrey gazed earnestly in his eyes.“And for the sake of brave old Devon and home you spared my life and treated me as you have?”“Not for the sake of brave old Devon,” said the buccaneer, gravely, “but for your own. Now, Captain Humphrey Armstrong, can we be friends?”“Yes!” exclaimed Humphrey, eagerly, as he stretched out his hand. “No!” he cried, letting it fall. “It is impossible, sir. I have my duty to do to my king and those I’ve left at home. I am your prisoner; do with me as you please, for, as a gentleman, I tell you that what you ask is impossible. We are enemies, and I must escape. When I do escape my task begins again—to root out your nest of hornets. So for heaven’s sake, for the sake of what is past, the day I escape provide for your own safety; for my duty I must do!”“Then you refuse me your friendship?”“Yes. I am your enemy, sworn to do a certain duty; but I shall escape when the time has come, I can say no more.”
Humphrey Armstrong walked on blindly farther and farther into the forest, for he was moved more deeply than ever he had been moved before. The presence of this man was hateful to him, and yet he seemed to possess an influence that was inexplicable; and his soft deep tones, which alternated with his harsher utterances, rang in his ears now he was away.
“Good heavens!” he cried at last, as he nearly struck against one of the stone images which stood out almost as grey and green as the trees around, “what an end to an officer’s career—the lieutenant of a wretched pirate king! New nation! Bah! what madness!”
“Captivity has unmanned me,” he said to himself, as he sat down upon a mossy fragment of stone in the silent forest path, and the utter silence and calm seemed refreshing.
He sat thus for some time, with his head resting upon his hand, gazing back along the narrow path, when, to his horror, just coming into view, he saw the figure of the buccaneer approaching, with head bent and arms crossed over his chest, evidently deep in thought.
Humphrey started up and backed away round a curve before turning, and walked swiftly along the path, looking eagerly for a track by which he could avoid another encounter, when for the first time he became aware of the fact that he was in the way leading to the old temple which had been formed into a mausoleum, and, unless he should be able to find another path, bound for the ancient structure.
He almost ran along the meandering path, feeling annoyed with himself the while, till the gloomy pile loomed before him, and he climbed up the doorway and looked back.
All was silent and dim as he stooped and entered, stepping cautiously on, and then, as soon as well sheltered, turning to gaze back and see if the buccaneer came in sight.
The place struck chill and damp; there was a mysterious feeling of awe to oppress him as he recalled the chamber behind him, or rather, as he stood, upon his left; and its use, and the strange figures he had seen seated about, all added to the sense of awe and mystery by which he was surrounded; while the feeling of annoyance that he should have shrunk from meeting this man increased.
Just then there was the faint drip of water as he had heard it before, followed by the whispering echoes; and, moved by the desire to know how near he was to what must be a deep well-like chasm, he stooped, felt about him, and his hand encountered a good-sized fragment of the stone carving which had mouldered and been thrust by the root of some growing plant from the roof.
He did not pause to think, but threw it from him, to hear it strike against stone.
It had evidently missed what he intended, and he had turned to gaze again at the path, when he found that it had struck somewhere and rebounded, to fall with a hideous hollow echoing plash far below.
Humphrey’s brow grew damp as he listened to the strange whispers of the water; and then he looked once more at the path, wondering whether the horrible noise had been heard, for just then the buccaneer came into sight and walked slowly toward the old temple.
But the echoes of that plash were too much shut up in the vast hollow below, and the buccaneer, still with his arms folded and chin resting upon his chest, walked on, evidently to enter the old building.
Humphrey hesitated for a moment, half intending to boldly meet his captor; but he shrank from the encounter, and weakly backed away farther into the darkness, till he was in the dim chamber where the coffin lay draped as before, and the strange figures of the old idols sat around.
There was no time for further hesitation. He must either boldly meet the buccaneer or hide.
He chose the latter course, glancing round for a moment, and then stepping cautiously into one of the recesses behind a sitting figure, where he could stand in complete darkness and wait till the buccaneer had gone.
The latter entered the next moment, and Humphrey felt half mad with himself at his spy-like conduct, for as he saw dimly the figure enter, he heard a low piteous moan, and saw him throw himself upon his knees beside the draped coffin, his hands clasped, and his frame bending with emotion, as in a broken voice he prayed aloud.
His words were incoherent, and but few of the utterances reached the listening man’s ears, as he bit his lips with anger, and then listened with wonder at what seemed a strange revelation of character.
“Oh, give me strength!” he murmured. “I swore revenge—on all—for the wrongs for the death—loved—strength to fight down the weakness—to be—self—for strength—for strength—to live—revenge—death.”
The last word of these agonised utterances was still quivering upon the air as if it had been torn from the speaker’s breast, when the dimly-seen doorway was suddenly darkened, and there was a quick movement.
Humphrey Armstrong’s position was one which enabled him, faint as was the light, to see everything—the draped coffin, the kneeling figure bent over it prostrate in agony of spirit, and a great crouching form stealing softly behind as if gathering for a spring.
Was it Bart? No; and the doorway was again darkened, and he saw that two more men were there.
Friends? Attendants? No. There was the dull gleam of steel uplifted by the figure bending over the buccaneer.
Assassination without doubt. The moment of peril had come, lightly as it had been treated, and, stirred to the heart by the treachery and horror of the deed intended, Humphrey sprang from his place of concealment, struck the buccaneer’s assailant full in the chest, and they rolled out together on the temple floor.
“Quick, lads, help!” shouted the man whom Humphrey had seized, and his companions rushed in, for a general mêlée to ensue at terrible disadvantage, for the assailants were armed with knives, and those they assailed defenceless as to weapons other than those nature had supplied.
Humphrey knew this to his cost in the quick struggle which ensued. He had writhed round as he struggled with the would-be murderer, and contrived to get uppermost, when a keen sense of pain, as of a red-hot wire passing through one of his arms, made him loosen his hold for a moment, and the next he was dashed back.
He sprang up, though, to seize his assailant, stung by the pain into a fit of savage rage, when, as he clasped an enemy, he found that it was not his first antagonist, but a lesser man, with whom he closed fiercely just as the fellow was striving to get out of the doorway—a purpose he effected, dragging Humphrey with him.
The passage was darker than the inner temple, where hoarse panting and the sounds of contention were still going on, oaths, curses, and commands uttered in a savage voice to “Give it him now!”—“Now strike, you fool!”—“Curse him, he’s like an eel!”—and the like came confusedly through the doorway, as, smarting with pain and grinding his teeth with rage, Humphrey struggled on in the passage, savagely determined to retain this one a prisoner, as he fought to get the mastery of the knife.
How it all occurred was more than he could afterwards clearly arrange in his own mind; what he could recall was that the pain weakened him, and the man with whom he struggled wrenched his left arm free, snatched the knife he held from his right hand, and would have plunged it into Humphrey’s breast had not the latter struck him a sharp blow upwards in the face so vigorously, that the knife fell tinkling on the ground, and the struggle was resumed upon more equal terms.
It was a matter of less than a minute, during which Humphrey in his rage and pain fought less for life than to master his assailant and keep him prisoner. They had been down twice, tripping over the stone-strewn pavement, and once Humphrey had been forced against the wall, but by a sudden spring he had driven his opponent backwards, and they were struggling in the middle of the opening, when a wild shriek rang out from the inner temple—a cry which seemed to curdle the young officer’s blood—and this was followed by a rush of someone escaping.
His retreat was only witnessed by one, for the struggle was continued on the floor. The two adversaries, locked in a tight embrace, strove to reach the feet, and, panting and weak, Humphrey had nearly succeeded in so doing, when his foe forced him backwards, and he fell to cling to the rugged stonework.
For as he was driven back the flooring seemed to crumble away beneath his feet; there was a terrible jerk, and he found himself hanging by his hands, his enemy clinging to him still, and the weight upon his muscles seeming as if it would tear them apart. In the hurry and excitement Humphrey could hardly comprehend his position for the moment. The next he understood it too well, for the stone which had given way fell with a hideous echoing noise, which came from a terrible distance below.
Almost in total darkness, his hands cramped into the interval between two masses of broken stone which formed part of thedébrisof the roof above, hanging over a hideous gulf at the full stretch of his arms, and with his adversary’s hands fixed, talon-like, in garb and dress as he strove to clamber up him to the floor above.
At every throe, as the man strove to grip Humphrey with his knees and climb up, some fragment of stone rushed down, to fall far beneath, splashing and echoing with a repetition of sounds that robbed him of such strength as remained to him, and a dreamy sensation came on apace.
“It is the end,” thought Humphrey, for his fingers felt as if they were yielding, the chilling sensation of paralysis increased, and in another minute he knew that he must fall, when the grip upon him increased, and the man who clung uttered a hoarse yell for help.
“Quick, for God’s sake! Quick!” he shrieked. “I’m letting go!”
But at that instant something dark seemed to come between him and the gleaming wet stone away above him in the roof, and then there was quite an avalanche of small stones gliding by.
It was the scoundrel’s companion come at the call for help, thought Humphrey; and he clung still in silence, wondering whether it was too late as his strained eye-balls glared upward.
“Where are you?” came in a husky voice.
It was to save his life; but though Humphrey recognised the voice, he could not speak, for his tongue and throat were dry.
“Are you here? Hold on!” cried the voice again; and then there was the sound of someone feeling about, but dislodging stones, which kept rattling down and splashing below.
“Where are you!” cried the voice above Humphrey; but still he could not reply. His hands were giving way, and he felt that his whole energy must be devoted to the one effort of clinging to the last ere he was plunged down into that awful gulf.
But the man who clung to him heard the hoarsely-whispered question, and broke out into a wild series of appeals for help—for mercy—for pity.
“For God’s sake, captain!” he yelled, “save me—save me! It was Black Mazzard! He made me come! Do you hear! Help! I can’t hold no longer! I’m falling! Help! Curse you—help!”
As these cries thrilled him through and through, Humphrey was conscious in the darkness that the hands he heard rustling above him and dislodging stones, every fall of which brought forth a shriek from the wretch below, suddenly touched his, and then, as if spasmodically, leaped to his wrists, round which they fastened with a grip like steel.
To Humphrey Armstrong it was all now like one hideous nightmare, during which he suffered, but could do nothing to free himself. The wretch’s shrieks were growing fainter, and he clung in an inert way now, while someone seemed to be muttering above—
“I can do nothing more—I can do nothing more!” but the grip about Humphrey’s wrists tightened, and two arms rested upon his hands and seemed to press them closer to the stones to which they clung.
“Captain—captain! Are you there?”
“Yes,” came from close to Humphrey’s face.
“Forgive me, skipper, and help me up! I’ll be faithful to you! I’ll kill Black Mazzard!”
“I can do nothing,” said the buccaneer, hoarsely. “You are beyond my reach.”
“Then go and fetch the lads and a rope. Don’t let me fall into this cursed, watery hell!”
“If I quit my hold here, man, you will both go down; unless help comes, nothing can be done.”
“Then, call help! Call help now, captain, and I’ll be your slave! Curse him for leaving me here! Where’s Joe Thorpe?”
“He was killed by Mazzard with a blow meant for me,” said the buccaneer, slowly.
“Curse him! Curse him!” shrieked the man. “Oh, captain, save me, and I’ll kill him for you! He wants to be skipper; and I’ll kill him for you if you’ll only—Ah!”
He uttered a despairing shriek, for as he spoke a sharp tearing sound was heard; the cloth he clung to gave way, and before he could get a fresh hold he was hanging suspended by the half-torn-off garb. He swung to and fro as he uttered one cry, and then there was an awful silence, followed by a plunge far below.
The water seemed to hiss and whisper and echo in all directions, and the silence, for what seemed quite a long space, was awful. It was, however, but a few instants, and then there was a terrific splashing as if a number of horrible creatures had rushed to prey upon the fallen man, whose shrieks for help began once more.
Appeals, curses, yells, piteous wails, followed each other in rapid succession as the water was beaten heavily. Then the cries were smothered, there was a gurgling sound, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed as it seemed to play against the stony walls of the place.
A few moments and the cries recommenced, and between every cry there was the hoarse panting of a swimmer fighting hard for his life as he struck out.
The buccaneer’s eyes stared wildly down into the great cenote, or water-tank, whose vast proportions were hidden in the gloom. He could see nothing; but his imagination supplied the vacancy, and pictured before him the head and shoulders of his treacherous follower as he swam along the sides of the great gulf, striving to find a place to climb up; and this he did, for the hoarse panting and the cries ceased, and from the dripping and splashing it was evident that he had found some inequality in the wall, by means of which he climbed, with the water streaming from him.
The task was laborious, but he drew himself up and up, climbing slowly, and then he suddenly ceased, uttered a terrible cry, and once more there was a splash, the lapping and whispering of the water, and silence.
He was at the surface again, swimming hard in the darkness and striving once more to reach the place where he had climbed; but in the darkness he swam in quite a different direction, and his hoarse panting rose again, quick and agitated now, the strokes were taken more rapidly, and like a rat drowning in a tub of water, the miserable wretch toiled on, swimming more and more rapidly and clutching at the wall.
Once an inequality gave him a few moments’ rest, and he clung desperately, uttering the most harrowing cries, but only to fall back with a heavy splash. Then he was up once more fighting for life, and the vast tank echoed with his gurgling appeals for help.
Again they were silenced, and the water whispered and lapped and echoed.
There was a splash, a hoarse gurgle, a beating of the water as a dog beats it before it sinks.
Again silence and the whispering and lapping against the sides more faint; then a gurgling sound, the water beat once or twice, a fainter echo or two, and then what sounded like a sigh of relief, and a silence that was indeed the silence of death.
Suddenly the silence in that darkness was broken, for a hoarse voice said—
“Climb up!”
“Climb!” exclaimed Humphrey, who seemed to have recovered his voice, while his frozen energies appeared to expand.
“Yes. Climb. I can hold you thus, but no more. Try and obtain a foothold.”
Humphrey obeyed as one obeys who feels a stronger will acting upon him.
“Can you keep my hands fast?” he said. “They are numbed.”
“Yes. You shall not slip now. Climb!”
Humphrey obeyed, and placed his feet upon a projection; but it gave way, and a great stone forced from the wall by his weight fell down with a splash which roused the echoes once more.
Humphrey felt half-paralysed again; but the voice above was once more raised.
“Now,” it said, “there must be foothold in that spot where the stone fell. Try.”
The young officer obeyed, and rousing himself for a supreme effort as his last before complete inaction set in, he strove hard. The hands seemed like steel bands about his wrists, and his struggle sent the blood coursing once more through his nerveless arms. Then, with a perfect avalanche of stones falling from the crumbling side, he strove and strained, and, how he knew not, found foothold, drew himself up, and half crawling, half dragged by the buccaneer as he backed up the slope, reached the level part of the passage between the entrance and the doorway of the inner temple, where he subsided on the stones, panting, exhausted, and with an icy feeling running through his nerves.
“Commodore Junk,” he whispered hoarsely as he lay in the semi-darkness, “you have saved my life.”
“As you saved mine.”
Those two lay there in the gloomy passage listening to the solemn whisperings and lappings of the water, which seemed to be continued for an almost interminable time before they died out, and once more all was silent. But the expectancy remained. It seemed to both that at any moment the miserable would-be assassin might rise to the surface and shriek for help, or that perhaps he was still above water, clinging to the side of the cenote, paralysed with fear, and that as soon as he recovered himself he would make the hideous gulf echo with his appeals.
By degrees, though, as the heavy laboured panting of their breasts ceased, and their hearts ceased beating so tumultuously, a more matter-of-fact way of looking at their position came over them.
“Try if you can walk now,” said the buccaneer in a low voice. “You will be better in your own place.”
“Yes—soon,” replied Humphrey, abruptly; and once more there was silence, a silence broken at last by the buccaneer.
“Captain Armstrong,” he said softly, at last, “surely we can now be friends!”
“Friends? No! Why can we?” cried Humphrey, angrily.
“Because I claim your life, the life that I saved, as mine—because I owe you mine!”
“No, no! I tell you it is impossible! Enemies, sir, enemies to the bitter end. You forget why I came out here!”
“No,” said the buccaneer, sadly. “You came to take my life—to destroy my people—but Fate said otherwise, and you became my prisoner—your life forfeited to me!”
“A life you dare not take!” cried Humphrey, sternly. “I am one of the king’s officers—your king’s men.”
“I have no king!”
“Nonsense, man! You are a subject of His Majesty King George.”
“No!” cried the buccaneer. “When that monarch ceased to give his people the protection they asked, and cruelly and unjustly banished them across the seas for no greater crime than defending a sister’s honour from a villain, that king deserved no more obedience from those he wronged.”
“The king—did this?” said Humphrey, wonderingly, as he gazed full in the speaker’s face, struggling the while to grasp the clues of something misty in his mind—a something which he felt he ought to know, and which escaped him all the while.
“The king! Well, no; but his people whom he entrusts with the care of his laws.”
“Stop!” cried Humphrey, raising himself upon one arm and gazing eagerly in the buccaneer’s face; “a sister’s honour—defended—punished—sent away for that! No; it is impossible! Yes—ah! I know you now! Abel Dell!”
The buccaneer shrank back, gazing at him wildly.
“That is what always seemed struggling in my brain,” cried Humphrey, excitedly. “Of course, I know you now. And you were sent over here—a convict, and escaped.”
The buccaneer hesitated for a few moments, with the deep colour going and coming in his face.
“Yes,” he said, at last. “Abel Dell escaped from the dreary plantation where he laboured.”
“And his sister!”
“You remember her story!”
“Remember! Yes,” cried Humphrey. “She disappeared from near Dartmouth years ago.”
“Yes.”
“What became of her—poor girl?” said Humphrey, earnestly; and the buccaneer’s cheeks coloured as the words of pity fell.
“She joined her brother out here.”
“But he was a convict.”
“She helped him to escape.”
“I see it all,” cried Humphrey, eagerly; “and he became the pirate—and you became the pirate—the buccaneer, Commodore Junk.”
“Yes.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated Humphrey. “And the sister—your sister, man the handsome, dark girl whom my cousin—Oh, hang cousin James! What a scoundrel he could be!”
It was the sturdy, outspoken exclamation of an honest English gentleman, and as the buccaneer heard it, Humphrey felt his hand seized in a firm grip, to be held for a few moments and then dropped.
“But he’s dead,” continued Humphrey. “Let him rest. But tell me—the sister—Oh!”
A long look of apology and pity followed the ejaculation, as Humphrey recalled the scene in the temple, where the long coffin lay draped with the Union Jack—the anguish of the figure on its knees, and the passionate words of adjuration and prayer. It was as if a veil which hid his companion’s character from him had been suddenly torn aside, and a look of sympathy beamed from his eyes as he stretched out his hand in a frank, manly fashion.
“I beg your pardon,” he cried, softly. “I did not know all this. I am sorry I have been so abrupt in what I said.”
“I have nothing to forgive,” said the buccaneer, warmly, and his swarthy cheeks glowed as Humphrey gazed earnestly in his eyes.
“And for the sake of brave old Devon and home you spared my life and treated me as you have?”
“Not for the sake of brave old Devon,” said the buccaneer, gravely, “but for your own. Now, Captain Humphrey Armstrong, can we be friends?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Humphrey, eagerly, as he stretched out his hand. “No!” he cried, letting it fall. “It is impossible, sir. I have my duty to do to my king and those I’ve left at home. I am your prisoner; do with me as you please, for, as a gentleman, I tell you that what you ask is impossible. We are enemies, and I must escape. When I do escape my task begins again—to root out your nest of hornets. So for heaven’s sake, for the sake of what is past, the day I escape provide for your own safety; for my duty I must do!”
“Then you refuse me your friendship?”
“Yes. I am your enemy, sworn to do a certain duty; but I shall escape when the time has come, I can say no more.”